A cheap and low-tech solution to saving millions

By Anwulika Okafor

NEW YORK, USA, 24 April 2007 –

Each year, between 350million and 500 million people are infected

with malaria, and 1 million die from the disease. Malaria accounts for

one death every 30 seconds in Africa alone.

© UNICEF/HQ05-1286/Getachew

A girl rests under an insecticide-treated bednet in the South Omo Zone of Ethiopia's Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region.

Though the challenge to make a significant impact in endemic countries

is daunting, all is not lost as UNICEF, its partners and governments

gather to rally the world for Africa Malaria Day on 25 April.

For 2007, the annual observance will focus on the need for global partnerships

to reverse the spread of malaria in Africa – in hopes of eradicating the deadly

disease, which is crippling so much of the continent’s youth.

© UNICEF/ HQ07-0127/Pirozzi

A child receives tablets for malaria

at a mobile health clinic in Chad.

Devastating a continent

It was not so long ago that malaria was a worldwide scourge.

Medical and social innovations were able to eliminate the disease

in some areas, but malaria is still devastating many parts of the

world – especially sub-Saharan Africa, where up to 90 per cent

of all malaria fatalities occur.

In much of Africa, malaria strains already overburdened health

systems. The majority of cases occur in children under the age of

five. Malaria-infected pregnant women are also at risk of contracting

anaemia, putting their lives and those of their unborn children at

risk.

In addition, weakness caused by the disease in adults can

severely impair their ability to work, limiting the means of livelihood

for families and communities, and perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

© UNICEF/ HQ06-0726 /Brioni

A UNICEF-supplied bednet protects

a woman and her newborn son from

malaria-bearing mosquitoes.

Resources for the futureMalaria is deadly, but there are

ways to treat it and tools to prevent it. At a cost of just

$10 each, for example, insecticide treated bednets (ITNs)

have been shown to reduce malaria deaths by up to 20 per cent,

with each net lasting up to five years.

UNICEF has been a major proponent of the use of ITNs

to fight malaria, funding the procurement and distribution

of these lifesaving nets across Africa. The organization has

also played a key part in the Roll Back Malaria campaign to

heighten public awareness about the importance of fighting

this disease.

Changes in health policy at the country level are also opening

doors to the use of anti-malarial drugs and combination therapies

to treat those who have already been infected.The treatments

are available and the education is there. What are needed now

are the resources. Africa Malaria Day 2007 is a day for the world

to speak with one voice, and the message is clear: Yes, malaria is

deadly, but it is also preventable

source

To me it makes a lot more sense to use our resources to deliver such cost-effective and

readily realizable cure to those in desperate need rather than blindly throwing hundreds and

thousands of millions to findingthe magic cure for the newer diseases that are more complicated

and difficult to treat such as AIDS. Not that AIDS is less immenent of an issue it's just that those

philanthropists gotta realize that if indeed the purpose of their charity is to save/help lives, and

not to become the world's most famous funder for advanced medical research which would

perhaps serve to earn them a Nobel Price Award in the end rather than saving more lives NOW.

Another example of pragmatic and effective solution to help the AIDS problem is, not by feeding

African inflicted magic curing pills, but giving and allowing African men and women free and

easy access to condems has long been known to be , by far, themost effective method to combat

the AIDS pandemic in Africa. But sadly the reasons why theuse of condem in Africa is still so low

are 1. Bush government's boycott (as this administration thinks that African people should rely

on "abstinence" instead of using condem to protect themselves); 2. African womenoften

wereforced to not use condems by their male partners.

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