The Seattle-based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Center for Vaccine Development (CVD) three-year, $3.5 million grant to vaccinate children in Mali against a bacteria that causes fatal meningitis and other serious infections, the Baltimore Times reports.

CVD researchers will monitor the impact of the vaccine, haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) conjugate, which is known to reduce the incidence of bacterial infections in children. In 2000, CVD and Mali's Ministry of Health established a CVD-Mali program at the major children's hospital in the capital city of Bamako, which suffers from high rates of Hib infection among infants and children. In the first year of the new grant, infants in Bamako will receive the vaccine at six, ten and fourteen weeks of age; in the second year, the vaccine will be given to children in other urban locations of the country; and in the third year infants in rural areas will be immunized.

"This bacteria is the leading cause of fatal forms of bacterial meningitis, and causes other serious infections, such as pneumonia, cellulites, and certain types of arthritis among infants and young children," said Myron Levine, professor of medicine, microbiology, and immunology and pediatrics at CVD. "In spite of its effectiveness, use of this vaccine has been extremely rare in developing countries, particularly poor countries of Africa. We hope to document the positive impact this vaccine has on reducing the number of these diseases so that neighboring countries will be encouraged to use it, as well."