(Panama Digest) The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a Grand Challenges Explorations grant to a team of Panamanian scientists researching how to treat malaria with microwave frequencies.
Doctors Carmenza Spadaforo of the Institute of Advanced Scientific Research and High Technology Services and Jose Stoute of Penn State received $1 million to continue the second phase of their research over two two years. The first phase of their project, executed in 2008, showed that malaria could be treated without drugs.
Panama is the only Latin American country to receive second phase funding of 42 applicants and 12 awardees, noted Dr. Ruben Berrocal at Tuesday’s press conference.
Malaria is a parasitic disease that is transmitted to humans through bite on infected Anopheles and then multiply in the body’s red blood cells. It was responsible for around 1 million deaths, primarily children in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
