World Malaria Day 2009

Definition:
Malaria is a serious, infectious disease spread by certain mosquitoes. It is most common in tropical climates. It is characterized by recurrent symptoms of chills, fever, and an enlarged spleen. The disease can be treated with medication, but it often recurs. Malaria is endemic occurs frequently in a particular locality) in many third world countries. (1)

A Tanzanian woman makes anti-malaria bed nets in a factory.

Malaria is one of the world's biggest killers. 300 to 500 million people are infected with the disease every year, and claims over a million lives yearly. Most of the deaths occur in Africa, but, the disease exists in 109 countries around the world.

Malaria causes severe suffering with fever, chills, headache, sweats, fatigue, nausea, dry cough, muscle and/or backache and vomiting.

Sores can open up on the body

Five countries account for over half of the deaths, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda.

With an estimated 608831 cases and 3491 deaths reported in 2008, malaria remains a major public health problem in Somalia.

Malaria accounts for 10 percent of the Africa continent's disease burden.

It kills twice as many people as AIDS.

World Malaria Day: Bed Nets for the DRC

The Global Malaria Action Plan is committed to waging the fight worldwide. But, the issue concerning them is not about ridding the world of the disease, but, how it can be accomplished.

Malaria claims about 180,000 deaths per year in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, most of them children.

Elizabeth McKee Gore is director of Nothing But Nets, one of the most successful campaigns to distribute insecticide-treated bed nets to malaria-endemic countries. Their goal is to distribute 700 million nets by the year 2010, and, with hope and work to come close to eliminating the disease by 2015.

One of the biggest worries in reaching these goals is donor fatigue. If people become drained from donating the processes will be slowed and the 2015 goal will not be reached.

Nothing But Nets, a U. S. based organization, uses resources already established for distributing, relying on already established networks, non-governmental organizations, church organizations, health workers, inoculation campaigns, and others to make sure the nets are delivered to even the most remote villages and that the nets are properly used, and continuously.

Ms. Gore sums up the donor program in these words, "So we started thinking at the United Nations Foundation that we've got to build a public campaign for malaria so people will start supporting it. Nets seemed like a really interesting entry point and a hook for the public to get behind. And it's such a small price for an American – to think of a 10-dollar donation as literally saving someone's life." (2)

The Carter Center, located in Atlanta, Georgia, is in partnership with the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, and participates in distributing bed nets to fight malaria, as part of an integrated health care delivery system.

The world has become much more united in this effort, than it use to be.

And, remember, for only $10 you can save someone's life...

To Make A DONATION:
http://www.nothingbutnets.net/its-easy-to-help/

(1) this info is from:
http://www.answers.com/topic/malaria

(2) quote taken from:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200904240530.html

Research for this article came from:

Africa: How a Sports Writer Unleashed a New Wave of Philanthropy, by Elizabeth Gore, 24 Apr 2009:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200904240530.html

Africa: Malaria Fighters Join in Race Against Time
by Cindy Shiner, 25 Apr 2009:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200904240515.html

The Carter Center - Malaria Control Program
http://www.cartercenter.org/health/malaria_control/bed_nets.html

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