Bill Gates offers $1.1million for a ‘next generation’ condom

Microsoft founder and multi-billionaire Bill Gates has offered an incredible $1.1million to any person(s) who can devise the ‘next generation’ of condoms which could help to banish some of the stigma attached to both purchasing and wearing one; ultimately leading to more safe sex and less risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

There will be an initial $100,000 (£66,000) grant for whoever can create a better condom than the latex ones commonly used today, with a further million dollar funding to help develop the best creation.

Gates, the world’s second richest man with a fortune of $67billion (£44billion), has offered the generous sum  as part of his ‘The Grand Challenge’ intuitive from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – a Seattle-based revolutionary global charity founded by Bill Gates and his wife that aims to provide funds into research for better treatments for a wide range of deadly diseases such as malaria, HIV and tuberculosis, in addition to tackling the massive problem of hunger and poverty in developing nations.

The foundation released a statement, speaking of their aims behind the quest for a new condom, saying: “Condoms have been in use for about 400 years yet they have undergone very little technological improvement in the past 50 years. Material science and our understanding of neurobiology has undergone revolutionary transformation in the last decade, yet that knowledge has not been applied to improve the product attributes of one of the most ubiquitous and potentially underutilised products on earth.”

It added: “The one major drawback to more universal use of male condoms is the lack of perceived incentive for consistent use. The primary drawback from the male perspective is that condoms decrease pleasure as compared to no condom, creating a trade-off that many men find unacceptable. Is it possible to develop a product without this stigma, or better, one that is felt to enhance pleasure? If so, would such a product lead to substantial benefits for global health?” The foundation stated that they were in particularly seeking a design of condom that “significantly preserves or enhances pleasure, in order to improve uptake and regular use.”

Current annual production of condoms stands at 15 billion, with an estimated 750 million users worldwide. However, there are still many millions of men who are reluctant to buy or use condoms which is perplexing especially when fantastic ranges such as those from Durex or Skins are inexpensive, do not require a prescription, easy to transport around, and offer a highly effective method of protection against unwanted pregnancies and common STIs such as chlamydia, herpes and gonorrhoea.

Dismay at the effectiveness of GSK’s malaria vaccine

The expectations and anticipation regarding the world’s first potential malaria vaccine have been dealt a blow after trial results demonstrated that the protection the vaccine offers, can significantly diminish and disappear altogether over time, disappointing researchers who had high hopes for it.

Developed by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the new vaccine is currently only referred to as ‘RTS,S’. Scientists state that full data from final-stage trials which include 15,000 children, are expected by the end of 2014. However, early results from the vaccine are not encouraging and expose the difficulties in creating a vaccine that offers full protection from a deadly disease such as malaria that claims the lives of more than 650,000 children every year – the most ‘at risk’ group in regards to mosquito bites.

The vaccine has been primarily engineered to help babies aged between six to 12 weeks and in a large-scale phase III trial that was carried out last year, only a third of babies aged within this range were prevented from becoming ill after being administered the new vaccine. Moreover, the protection was lower than what was evident in older children.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, worth an estimated £40bn, was one of the backers behind the research, and after those results emerged last year he commented: “The efficacy came back lower than we had hoped, but developing a vaccine against a parasite is a very hard thing to do.”

Christopher Plowe, a malaria researcher at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the United States, who was not involved in the RTS,S trial, also spoke on the findings last year, saying: “The results are kind of disappointing because we’d all like to see a malaria vaccine that has closer to 80 percent or 100 percent efficacy.”

Results of the latest data were published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. Although the RTS,S vaccine was found to have a rate of protecting peaking at 53%, after an average of merely eight months, the level of protection had declined at an alarming rate.

Ally Olotu of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) Wellcome Trust Research Programme in Kenya, who led the follow-up study, said: “It was a bit surprising to see the efficacy waned so significantly over time. In the fourth year, the vaccine did not show any protection.”

A GSK spokesperson commented on the latest results, stating that because they were derived from a small, mid-stage trial, they did not “provide definitive answers about the duration of protection or how the vaccine candidate works in different malaria transmission settings.”

Phillip Bejon, a researcher at the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust programme, was involved with the study and he said in spite of the decreasing effectiveness, “there is still a clear benefit to the vaccine.”

Bejon added: “Many of the children (in Africa) will experience multiple episodes of clinical malaria infection, but overall we found that 65 cases of malaria were averted over the four-year period for every 100 children vaccinated. We now need to look at whether offering a vaccine booster can sustain efficacy for longer.”