Word: alonso
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...access to any gold-mine reserves the government might take away from idle concessionaires, foreign or Venezuelan. But many miners remain skeptical, especially since the cooperative funds are moving as slowly through Caracas as Crystallex's environmental permits. "We're always living with conflict and manipulation," says Humberto José Alonso, 37, an illegal miner for 18 years. "We hear promises from everyone, but we don't see results...
...affected by a disease that kills more than a million people each year, Mozambique is considered a hot spot. In some parts of the country, 9 out of 10 kids younger than age 5 are infected with the mosquito-borne parasite that causes malaria. That's why Dr. Pedro Alonso, a Spaniard, in 1996 founded the Manhiça Health Research Centre. The terribly impoverished rural town is the last place you would expect to find a sophisticated medical laboratory. But here, working with a team of mostly Mozambican scientists and backed by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation, Alonso...
...drug companies are reluctant to take experimental vaccines out of their lab and into the field for human trials. But an organization called the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, started by the Gates Foundation in 1999 and now supported by a growing list of corporate contributors, is making such trials--including Alonso's-- possible...
...Alonso's trial involves 2,000 children ages 1 to 4 taking a vaccine originally developed by GlaxoSmithKline. The vaccine reduced the risk of clinical (symptomatic) malaria 30%, new infections 45% and new episodes of severe, life-threatening malaria in those already infected an average of 58%. In the children less than 2 years old, it cut the risk of severe malaria 77%. The next step, says Alonso, is to test the vaccine in children younger than a year old. Then trials will be expanded into other countries. "If all goes well," he says, "we should have an approved vaccine...
That would be deeply satisfying to Alonso, 46, who, with his wife Clara, has been fighting malaria for nearly 20 years. "When you arrive as a young doctor in Africa," he says, "and you walk into a hospital, you're basically confronted with this massive disease that causes so much suffering and death. It is impossible not to become passionate about fighting it." Says the father of three: "Those children in the hospital are looking at us, telling us to put more effort, more resources, more brains, more research, to come out with solutions. They are a constant reminder...