The incidence and severity of malaria was on the rise worldwide, with up to 500 million annual cases, and the availability and application of effective solutions was not immediately forthcoming. Resistance to available drugs was spreading rapidly, making them unreliable in many parts of the world, and a malaria vaccine was years away from being produced, tested, and deployed. Furthermore, social programs to curb the spread of malaria through education and community control activities were limited, and in many places were non-existent. Meanwhile, funding for malaria research and control was not only extremely limited, especially compared to the scope of the problem, but was decreasing, and no other organization existed that was dedicated specifically to addressing problems caused by this disease.

*The situation remains as serious today. However, the world is beginning to pay serious attention to this problem. Several global initiatives have sprung up in the past few years, and the outlook for progress is much more promising as a result.

MFI's Website: A Gateway for Malaria-Related Information....

In 1995, the MFI opened the www.malaria.org website to bring together information about malaria that existed and to fill in the gaps where no information was available. The website has evolved to be not only a gateway for malaria-related information but also a facilitator to help other malaria initiatives upon start-up. The website Communication Center was implemented to serve the scientific community in many capacities, and has done so successfully.