The MIM conference will bring together malaria researchers from across Africa and around the world to consider malaria research advances, how to more effectively employ or develop malaria-control strategies, and how to strengthen malaria research training activities. More than 700 malaria researchers and control experts will attend the MIM conference.

MIM is an international alliance of research and public health agencies and African scientists established in 1997 in Dakar, Senegal, at the first Pan-African Malaria Conference. MIM's objectives are to stimulate and support collaborative research to address the needs of public health programs in malaria-endemic countries and to strengthen research capacity in malaria-endemic countries. FIC, which serves as the current MIM Secretariat, organized the conference on behalf of the MIM partners.

Public and private groups are co-sponsoring the conference. Major sponsors include the NIH (the Fogarty International Center, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the National Library of Medicine), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline, the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, the Malaria Vaccine Initiative, the Swiss Development Cooperation, the United States Agency for International Development, the World Health Organization, The Wellcome Trust, and the UK Medical Research Council. A complete list of partners is available on the MIM website at http://mim.nih.gov.

Malaria kills 2.7 million people each year, mostly African children under the age of 5. Over 1.5 billion new infections occur annually, resulting in enormous economic burdens. These numbers are on the rise due to insecticide resistance, antimalarial drug resistance, and environmental changes.

For further details about attending the MIM conference, please contact: Martin Sarikiael Alilio, Ph.D.; Fogarty International Center, NIH 31 Center Drive, MSC 2220, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA; Tel: 1-301-402-6212; Fax: 1-301-402-2056 E-mail: Aliliom@mail.nih.gov

Detailed information about MIM, its partners, and its activities is available on the MIM website at http://mim.nih.gov.

FIC is the international component of the NIH. It promotes and supports scientific discovery internationally and mobilizes resources to reduce disparities in global health. FIC will commemorate its thirty-fifth anniversary in 2003 with a year-long lecture series on global health issues and a scientific symposium on May 20-21, 2003. NIH is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Press releases, fact sheets, and other FIC-related materials are available at www.nih.gov/fic.