As agreed when MIM was launched, the Secretariat rotates among sponsoring agencies every three years. The Wellcome Trust served as the first MIM Secretariat. To ensure that the transfer of the MIM Secretariat was conducted in a fair and transparent manner, the current MIM Secretariat developed a voting mechanism involving MIM's partners to decide which organization(s) would serve as the third MIM Secretariat. A group of voting representatives composed of MIM's major partners, including NIH; The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the United States Agency for International Development; the government research and development agencies of France, Germany, Japan, and Sweden; The World Bank; the World Health Organization; The Burroughs Wellcome Fund; The Wellcome Trust; and The Malaria Vaccine Initiative, as well as the African scientific institutions that have been most directly involved in MIM, reviewed the applications and voted to select the new MIM Secretariat. The voting members consisted of 10 funding partners from the North and 11 African countries representing 16 research institutions. These voting members were identified based on their significant and direct involvement with MIM, either through major support of malaria conferences, workshops, and initiatives or through in-country activities.

"We are pleased to have had the opportunity to host the MIM Secretariat since 1999 and to help shape its directions and activities during that time. We are equally delighted that the next MIM Secretariat has been selected and that new perspectives and energies will be added to this critical enterprise," said Gerald T. Keusch, M.D., Director of MIM and of NIH's Fogarty International Center. He added, "The enormous burden of malaria and the disparity in global malaria research efforts is the rationale for MIM and the reason why U.S., European, Asian, South American,
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Contact: Jennifer Cabe
jennifercabe@nih.gov
301-496-2075
NIH/Fogarty International Center
13-Aug-2002