WHO members are now required to seek new incentives for R&D for the poorest, with results in two years

At the last World Health Assembly, Kenya and Brazil pressed for member to agree a "framework" for global health research for resource-poor countries and communities. The word frightened some states, but they agreed to look for new incentives in addition to intellectual property.

Fourteen Ministers of Health and Heads of Delegation from Africa, Asia, Middle East and South America, meeting in Accra this June, reached an historic agreement to link up, South-to-South, on health research – especially to discover and share measures to improve the working of their “fragile” health systems. The countries also stressed the need to improve their own research base, and better understand their own national burdens of disease – and committed themselves to invest at least 2% of their health budgets on research and research capability strengthening.

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Successful research now going into development

Research has created a genetically-modified yeast that can make a key precursor of the leading antimalarial, artemisinin. If process development is successful, this could ease supply shortages and lower prices.

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A review of Bank HIV/AIDS programmes implies their evidence base has been weak.

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