$8.4M Grant Extends Malaria Study

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A Michigan State University professor will be able to spend at least seven more years researching malaria thanks to an $8.4 million grant.

The grant from the National Institute of Health will allow Terrie Taylor to find ways to improve health care for malaria-infected patients. Taylor has spent six months every year for the past three decades helping children with malaria in the east African country of Malawi, the Lansing State Journal reported.

“The grant is an absolutely critical next step in the process,” she said.

Taylor said she plans to focus her next clinical trial on four possible treatments for brain swelling that occurs in children suffering from malaria. According to the researcher, pressure from the swelled brain often lands in the area of the brain stem that prompts the impulse to breathe. Patients eventually stop breathing, resulting in death.

According to Taylor, the mortality rate for malaria-infected people is about 37 percent. She’s hoping the newly funded project will cut mortality down to 17 percent.

Taylor’s clinical trials are expected to start in April at a pediatric surgery and intensive care unit in Malawi.
The World Health Organization estimated in its 2016 world malaria report that between 235,000 and 639,000 people died from the disease in 2015.

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