Sir

I applaud the attention you have given to the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria (MIM)1, but I wish to correct statements in your most recent News report2 and leading article3 about the position of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) on the initiative.

Although we have been prepared to consider “a common, centrally managed fund for malaria research”, at least on a small scale, the position we clearly espoused at the recent meeting in The Hague was different: a coordinated review of proposals for collaborative research involving African scientists, with funding by individual agencies according to their own priorities.

It is also inaccurate to say that we were “springing… radical proposals” on our intended partners; the several options for interactions among funding agencies had been discussed previously in Dakar and were circulated among the agencies before the meeting in The Hague.

Furthermore, you inappropriately cast us as Jamesian upstarts, when in fact the United States supports more than half of the world's research on malaria, including substantial work in Africa4.

Missing from your coverage of the recent meeting, however, was the central feature of MIM to which many agencies had subscribed at a previous meeting in April 1996: the intention of developing stronger and more interactive science in Africa through efforts on malaria, in collaboration with Northern partners. I hope that, in broadening the scope of its efforts to advocacy and fund-raising, the MIM does not lose sight of that important objective.

Despite the evident resistance in The Hague to mechanisms for multilateral support, we at the NIH are encouraged by the dedication of our partners to malaria research, eager to pursue the tasks assigned to us (proposals for a basic science agenda for malaria and for improved electronic communications in Africa), committed to further increases in fiscal support for malaria research and enthusiastic about both the original and the expanded goals of the MIM.