Hassan Mshinda

Country: Tanzania, born: 1959
Present occupation: Director General of the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH)
Field of research: Epidemiology

Supported project: The Challenge of Drug Resistance in Malaria: Studies in an Area of Intense Perennial Transmission, Kilombero District (2000)

"Basic research in the areas of health and agriculture are especially important for low-income countries. It is not least due to my insistence that the Tanzanian government is now spending 1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on scientific research."

Malaria parasites are tenacious. Sooner or later they develop resistance against the conventional anti-malarial drugs. In his research project, Hassan Mshinda scrutinized two drugs: the conventional Chloroquine and the combination-therapy Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine. He was able to show that Chloroquine was a less effective weapon against the disease than was Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine, even though resistance against the latter was also detectable. These results had a high practical value as they formed the basis for new national guidelines for malaria treatment.