GlaxoSmithKline Using Satellites to Fight Malaria in Africa

More than one million people each year die of malaria. Most of those deaths are children living in the "Malaria Belt," a sub-Sahara region of Africa. Various approaches have been used to reach people and vaccinate them in the hope of slowing down or stamping out the spread of the disease. But researchers and medical personnel are constantly thwarted by the fact that most of the places where malaria thrives are locations that have no electricity, no telephone systems, and no clinical infrastructures to support a clinical trial of new vaccines.

GlaxoSmithKline, working with the Gates Foundation, is readying a clinical trial in the Malaria Belt in the hope of using an experimental treatment for vaccinating 16,000 children in seven African countries. The large clinical trial of the new vaccine is itself an ambitious undertaking, but the geographical and technological challenges are an even bigger hurdle. Medical researchers must be able to transmit data and x-ray findings into GlazoSmithKline's network in order for them to be evaluated and data compiled.

As it turns out, limited connectivity in the area is precisely what could result in a more effective clinical trial result. According to Neil Darwent, Director of IT for Research and Development at GlaxoSmithKline, the trials must be conducted out in remote areas where people are actually struggling with infections. The rural locations, which are located away from major population centers, are better sites for obtaining purer results from the clinical trial.

The problem of connectivity issues is being solved by the use of satellites. Sites for the clinics are unremarkable; each has gasoline generators powering a few outbuildings, where there are a few computers installed for data collection and x-ray services. At each location, a concrete pad holds a small satellite.

Each satellite is connected to GlaxoSmithKline's main data collection system, where independent trial evaluators can look at the x-rays and collected data and then communicate back to staff working in the field. X-rays are necessary to ensure that the symptoms perceived as malaria aren't actually related to some other problem inside the chest cavity. At the end of every day, the collected information is uploaded through GE's Satlynx service, a satellite system that has been used in Africa previously by oil companies and energy exploration companies. GlaxoSmithKline has been developing a malaria vaccine for Africa for more than 20 years. The current large-scale clinical trials are the third step in the research, after researchers conducted the first two phases in laboratories and on small populations. If this third stage of the trial results in a successful vaccine, it will be the first time in human history that a vaccine has been successfully created to abolish a parasite.

The clinical trial in Africa is expected to last approximately five years and will be performed in 11 different sites in Malawi, Ghana, Mozambique, Gabon, Tanzania, Kenya, and Burkina-Faso. Technicians are currently testing connectivity at all the 11 locations and preparing to bring them online so they can start transmitting data on the first day of the trial. The number of sites involved in the trial isn't inordinately large, but the number of children being sampled - 16,000 with none older than 17 months - will be one of the largest clinical trials ever undertaken by GlaxoSmithKline. But the expense and effort involved is critical because the malaria virus is spreading, so it is urgent to use the best technology available to stop it in its tracks.