NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Sir Richard Feachem led the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria from its inception in 2002 until 2007, just one part of his illustrious career in public health. We were fortunate to host Sir Richard in November for a Development Policy Centre seminar.

Following the event, Professor Gabriele Bammer of the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at ANU interviewed Sir Richard on the role of researchers, policymakers and the private sector in the global malaria response.

The following is a condensed version of their conversation. You can listen to a podcast of Sir Richard’s presentation at the ANU and the full recording of the interview here.

Gabriele: The malaria story is really a good story. I was wondering if you could tell us the back story to it, particularly how research has been influential in making those changes happen.

Richard: Well, I think the research dimension to the malaria story is an interesting mixture of good news and less good news. The good news is what you would predict. The malaria research community is quite large and very active. And since Bill and Melinda Gates became seriously committed to malaria around the year 2000, the funding available for malaria research has now increased dramatically.