Abstract:
Research in wealthy countries has been co-funded by
the government and the industry, allowing spectacu-
lar discoveries in molecular biology, chemistry and
engineering, which are then taken to the pharmaceu-
tical industry and applied to the development of drugs
and devices for a wide range of diseases, leading to a
decrease in mortality in developed countries. Unfor-
tunately, most benefits of these gains for human kind
are not available in most parts of Africa, a continent
with low life expectancy associated with an extre-
mely high burden of diseases that have been
controlled in other parts of the world.
