Millennium Development Goal #6

Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases

The organization that will receive our March collection is NetsforLife: A Partnership for Malaria Prevention.

Malaria is preventable and treatable, and yet:

· 1 million people die from malaria each year

· 300 to 500 million infections are estimated each year

· 75% of those who become sick and die are children under 5

· 3,000 children a day die in sub-Saharan Africa

Malaria is one of the deadliest preventable diseases on the planet. It's caused by a parasite that is transmitted by mosquitoes that typically bite their victims at night. Malaria can kill very quickly if untreated and remains the leading cause of death in many developing countries, particularly among children.

NETSFORLIFE is a consortium of funding and implementing partners that work through Churches and ecumenical partners in Africa to mobilize grassroots communities to prevent, recognize and treat malaria.

NetsforLife is distributing one million long-lasting insecticide-treated nets in 16 countries over a 3 year period; providing on-the-ground education and training in malaria prevention and treatment; and advocating for better, more effective drug therapy and diagnostic testing.

NetsforLife works with the leadership of implementing partners as well as the natural leaders within the communities being served to mobilize, train and educate communities about malaria prevention and distribute long-lasting insecticide-treated nets. Malaria agents are volunteers who are trained to provide fellow residents with accurate information about malaria in the local language and culturally acceptable manner. Community leaders have the position and authority to command respect among the community, and often include the village chiefs and queen mothers and their subordinates. Their support is needed to begin programs as they are the ones who mobilize the community and encourage full participation. Technical staff are employed by NetsforLife’s implementing partners and have been extensively trained to recruit and train malaria agents and community members, as well as address questions about malaria and the technical details of the NetsforLife program.

NetsforLife is a partner with Episcopal Relief and Development in Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, and with Christian Aid in Nigeria and Uganda.

From the Jan 31st 2008, The Economist print edition:

Giving bed nets and drugs away free may be the way to deal with malaria

“FREE goods are worth what you pay for them” is the cynic's approach to the world, shared by hard-headed poverty-busters. Charging even a nominal price for things such as mosquito nets and condoms makes people take them more seriously, it is argued. Given away free, the nets may end up being used to catch fish rather than protecting sleeping people.

That does happen. Even so, a recent study in Kenya suggested providing malarial areas with large numbers of free bed nets brought better results than selling them. Now a new survey by the World Health Organisation (WHO), on behalf of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, has shown that the approach works well in other countries, too…

Giving away insecticide-impregnated nets free to anyone visiting a clinic (the nets stay potent for about five years) was not the only new thing about the operations. In all cases, the countries rolled out nationwide campaigns instead of relying on local ones. In many cases, they also gave away drugs based on artemisinin, a substance to which the malarial parasite has yet to develop widespread resistance.

Nets and artemisinin are two planks of malaria control. The third is to spray the inside of people's houses with DDT, to kill female mosquitoes when they settle to digest their blood meals. The objective is to achieve 80% take-up in each village. At that point, the cycle of transmission from mosquito to human to mosquito is broken in a way similar to the action of a vaccine; this stops the spread of the disease, and thus protects everyone.

Based on the new results, Dr Kochi reckons that a five-year campaign costing about $10 billion would be enough to bring malaria under control in most of Africa, reducing the death rate to a matter of thousands a year, rather than the million or more who die now.

Eliminating malaria altogether, though, would be a far harder task, involving destroying mosquitoes in the remaining pockets of infection. That is controversial: some—not least Dr Kochi—see it as a dangerous distraction until the easier job of bringing the disease under control is completed. Others want to aim straight away for elimination. In the long run, that should surely be the objective. But, as the old saying has it, the best can often turn out to be the enemy of the good. And the good now looks to be in sight.