The Head of the Immunology and Micro-Biology Department of the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, Prof Isabella Quakyi says the fight against malaria is enormous and that a multi-molecular vaccine to combat the parasite at its various developmental stages was being developed.

Prof Quakyi said the ability of the parasite to adapt to its environment makes it difficult for scientists to develop the appropriate vaccine to combat it. Prof Quakyi was speaking at the opening of the second annual research meeting of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR). The two-day meeting, which is under the theme; Control of Endemic Diseases - Bridging the Research-Policy Divide, Special Focus on HIV/AIDS and Malaria, is being attended by about 50 researchers, medical students and policy makers.

Prof Quakyi said it has been discovered that the malaria parasite have local identity, as such African parasites are different from Asian parasites. She said government must therefore be committed to capacity building in the research sector through the training of more local research scientists to study the environment and develop vaccines to combat local parasites.

The Director of Health Service, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa called for the establishment of National Medical Research Council (NMRC). He said such a council would co-ordinate medical research activities in the country and also create the platform for effective collaboration between policy makers and researchers to facilitate efforts at combating endemic diseases.

Prof Akosa noted that it is imperative for national policy to be adequately informed by reliable medical research, if policies ere to adequately address the medical problems in the country. This he said calls for collaboration between researchers and policy makers to ensure that the latter has adequate information on medical problems of the country and formulate appropriate policy to address them. He said the national policy as it stands now has made medical research virtually, relegated to the background as scientific research focus mainly on agriculture, industry, technology and others.