Twenty-five year old Maria Sitole is carrying her two months old baby girl, Chisomo to Kamuzu Central hospital (KCH) in the capital city of Malawi. Chisomo is running a high fever and automatically, Maria suspects malaria. Living in one of the high density townships of Kawale, Maria knows better than to hesitate about seeking medical attention. After all, malaria continues to be the number one killer disease and spares no child every 30 seconds in Africa. She needed to hurry and get there before 8 am because KCH is a government referral hospital in the central region and offers its services for free with only a smaller paying section. It obviously gets too crowded so she had to be one of the early birds to catch the worm, even if it wasn't the fattest.

Maria arrives at 7 am but is the ninth in an already growing queue. She unstraps Chisomo from her back whose appetite has dwindled, vomits periodically and seems weak. The reception in a private hospital would has been different with Chisomo  being rushed to the emergency room and placed on a glucose drip before the doctor saw her. At this hospital, she will have to be guided by the rule; wait your turn or leave!!

After a long wait though, Chisomo and her mother are seen by a doctor at exactly 11 am. She is given oral rehydration salts to give to the infant with a quinine injection. Another injection stabilises the little one and she is able to fall asleep after a hectic night previously.

While Maria waits at the hospital for further observation on Chisomo, on doctors' instructions, University of Carolina (UNC) Community Activities Coordinator, Chifundo Zimba, walks up to her and feels Chisomo's forehead. She does not need to be told the diagnosis.

Zimba chats with Maria about the possibility of making malaria history through a malaria vaccine whose trials are currently in their preparatory stages. She tells her that the trials will target infants between the ages of 6-12 weeks and another age group of 5-17 months because the disease continues to ravage children with one million dying every year in the Sub-Saharan Africa.

Maria seems fascinated at the prospect of having a vaccine for malaria. She and many other mothers cannot afford treatment in private hospitals because the bills are shocking. Treatment at government hospital is a gamble because sometimes patients are told about the unavailability of drugs. She realises that once the trial is certified, not only will it provide peace of mind to young parents, but it could mean eradicating the disease that has existed her lifetime as well as her parents, grandparents and even great grandparents.

During the course of their conversation, Maria learns about the George Joaki centre in area 18, a township within the city. That is the centre being set up specifically for the vaccine trial and is now in its final stages. It will need 1,600 babies as case studies to be monitored for two and a half years in phase three of its trials. The young mother does not hesitate to enrol her infant in the vaccine trial programme when the official suggests it to her.

The centre was named after Dr. George Joaki who worked at the UNC project and greatly contributed to the cause of malaria eradication. He died on 18th October, 2007 in a tragic car accident. On the left side on the centre, just before the entrance, a stone plague reads "in memory of our beloved colleague Dr. George Joaki. 24th November 1969- 18th October, 2007.

Funded by Bill Melinda Gates Foundation under the Programme for Appropriate Health Technology -Malaria Vaccine Initiative (PATH-MVI), the structure cost K28 million and will have the largest trials in Africa, beating Kenya, Ghana, Gabon,, Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Mozambique and Mali. It will bring the total number of trial sites to 11 in seven African countries.

Community sensitisation is one of the preparatory activities of the trial by UNC, to be held at George Joaki centre. UNC is implementing the trials in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH). The project has also established clinical sensitisation at KCH and health centres in Lilongwe and is constant interaction with chiefs, political leaders and Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs).

UNC Project Administration Manger, Innocent Mofolo told a group of journalists that visited the site as part of this year's World Malaria Day on 25th April that permission for participation was sought using ethically accepted standards. He did not elaborate.

Consultations for constructing the centre started in April last year and it has a reception area, consultation room, conference room, a room furnished with four baby cots and a data processing room that is yet to be fitted with eight laptops to allow for information transmission directly to Belgium, headquarters. It will have a lab, specific for malaria

He said about US$12 billion is spent in Africa for the treatment of malaria and that money spent in its prevention would be a small price to pay. He however did not have the actual figure of how much the trials would cost.

Mofolo said George Joaki centre will work in close collaboration with UNC Tidziwe Malaria Research site at KCH which already has a pharmacy and laboratory already at work in preparation for the trials. It also has two satellite dishes to enhance communication between sites.

Tidziwe, a vernacular name meaning "we should find out" is housed in a two-storey, 17,500 sq ft building within KCH premises. It has an outpatient, research exam, counselling rooms, a state of the art laboratory and medical library with satellite web connections supporting journal access.

It has a lecture hall and classroom with teleconferencing capacity, a data management area with remote and local data entry capacity, secure data. The centre has a storage space, a pharmacy and dispensary, administrative and community activity office space. 

UNC Project employs over 250 people in Malawi consisting of medical and clinical officers, nurses, laboratory and pharmacy technicians, data officers and administrative and logistical support staff.  

Laboratory Consultant Debbie Kamwendo, said the lab at Tidziwe was internationally accredited and one of four in Lilongwe. It contains full blood count machines; CD4 counting machines blood chemistry analysers, conducts haematology and microbiology. She also said that the lab was computerised and the best in the country which was also used a referral lab for other diseases like meningitis and HIV/Aids among others.

RTSS Malaria vaccines study coordinator for the UNC project Tisungane Mvalo said the third phase for the vaccine trial would be the last stage before it either approved for licensing or rejected, which he said was a positive sign towards malaria eradication. He explained that the last two phases proved successful in terms of safety and effectiveness.

Once fully complete, Mvalo said trials would begin but neither he nor Mofolo could give specific dates for commencement. Meanwhile, the country eagerly waits to join the world in bidding malaria goodbye.