Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates backs Glasgow Uni's rabies fight with £6m grant

Sep 24 2009 By Frank Hurley

Bill Gates

A VETINARY scientist at Glasgow University has attracted a staggering s6 million grant from the world's richest man to wipe out killer rabies in third world countries.

The huge sum comes from Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, pictured right.

His charity foundation recognised the outstanding pioneering work carried out by Dr Sarah Cleaveland in the university's battle against rabies.

Dr Cleaveland, of the university's Vet School and Life Sciences Faculty, will act as a key member of the scientific advisory team. They will organise an innoculation of domestic dogs - the main carrier of the disease - in Tanzania, South Africa and in the Philippines.

The grant, received by the World Health Organisation's (WHO) department of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD), amounts to s6,2000,000.

Dr Cleaveland said she and the WHO team hope the project would provide the basis of a wider strategy for the prevention and elimination of human rabies.

She said: "Myself and my colleagues are delighted to be part of this pioneering work and we salute the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for supporting the fight against this awful disease."

Rabies is a viral disease that infects domestic and wild animals, killing more than 55,000 people every year.

It is transmitted to humans through the bite of a rabid dog. Once symptoms develop, rabies is fatal to both animals and humans.

The work undertaken by Dr Cleaveland in Africa's Serengeti was carried out in conjunction with her colleagues Dan Haydon, Katie Hampson and Tiziana Lembo.

Dr Cleaveland said: "We found the circulation of the single virus strain in the Serengeti is driven by domestic dogs.

"If we are to eradicate rabies, we need to vaccinate at least 70 per cent of domestic dogs and hit the virus at its source.

"This hypothesis is founded on work I started in the 1990s and developed into a pilot vaccination programme inoculating domestic dogs. This project was successful and rabies has now disappeared from large areas."