Following an emotional story of one woman’s fight against malaria in the Chicago Tribune. Dawn Dubsky was in Ghana learning to make jewelry when the Chicago area nurse was bitten by a mosquito. Since she was not taking profalactics she was worried and it turns out rightly so.
Back home in Chicago, Dubsy quickly came down with a severe headache and alarming fever. But checking into a local hospital would only be the start of her journey to beat malaria. This is a tough story of modern medicine fighting a tough disease, one that we often forget about since it rarely kills Americans – instead ravaging the African continent.
Dubsy lost her arms and legs due to complications of fighting malaria but today she has formed a non profit to work against the disease so others might live. Read the whole story on thr Tribune website.
In honor of World AIDS day tomorrow, December 1, Starbucks will donate 5 cents from every hand crafted drink sold in the U.S. to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
We regluarly talk about gaps in Global Fund contributions and it is refreshing to see a company with the reach of Starbucks stepping up and helping out.
I think we might have a few egg nog lattes in the office to do our part! If you can’t make it to your Starbucks tomorrow you can still help out by visiting the Starbucks Loves Project.
Pastor Rick Warren, who sits on Malaria No More’s Board, and Bill and Melinda Gates appeared on Meet the Press over the Thanksgiving Holiday to participate in a discussion of what they are thankful for.
Rick Warren expressed that the more he gives, the less he feels tied to materialism and asserts ”We’re most like God when we’re giving, when we’re generous, because everything we have is a gift.” Mr. Warren points to the United States continued giving to various global health causes including AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as an example of this giving writ large. He further asserts that this practice of giving is good policy.
“I would say the greatest need right now are the 146 million orphans in the world. There are 146 million kids growing up without mommies and daddies. That is anarchy waiting to happen. And whoever gets there first and loves them first will have their heart and devotion. And I always say to our government leaders that, that health care and poverty and relief is–and orphan care, that’s–this is good foreign policy. I, I discovered in–during the President Bush years that–during PEPFAR that when you save a life, people tend to like your country. They say, you know, “My husband’s alive because of PEPFAR. My”–and so these things are important that we, we continue them because people will die, but also it’s, it’s good policy.”
Bill and Melinda Gates also echoed the need for giving, even in these difficult economic times.
“Well, I think in some ways not, because it’s such a tiny fraction of U.S. budgets. So we’re talking about less than 1 percent of the entire U.S. budget. In fact, it’s about .25 percent of the U.S. budget that goes to these health issues. And I think what we’re finding is that when people hear our incredibly successful and that we’re literally saving lives, it’s something they’re interested in being a part of. So we think it’s something that really needs to get continued and it’s very appropriate, even in these times that we’re having in the economy. We hear people talk over and over again about they care about the values of American people, about–we care about equality on the planet. And that’s what we’re doing, is we’re taking life-saving advances to people who don’t have them.“-Melinda Gates on Meet the Press
Delving into a new article in FastCompany about the reach of Ashton Kutcher and his production company. One protion of the piece highlights how Ashton advocated for Malaria No More during the run up to World Malaria Day in 2009 – helping to raise nearly a million dollars and spreading the word of the malaria fight far and wide.
The digital team’s most visible success on the social Web to date is its complete and utter domination of Twitter. (Kutcher says @aplusk ”is Ashton plus Katalyst. It’s both.” Very savvy.) Ross explains, “We decided that when we hit a certain reach and traction on Twitter with Ashton, we would test the notion of creating a social movement there.” Ross consulted with Ray Chambers, a longtime friend from her Yahoo days who is also special envoy to the UN for malaria. Was there a way to use Kutcher’s Twitter profile to raise awareness for the upcoming World Malaria Day? Could the effort connect people to something tangible, like a bed net to save a child?
Chambers pointed Ross to a small organization called Malaria No More, which he’d cofounded with Chernin. “When Sarah came to us, we knew it sounded cool,” says Malaria No More’s CEO Scott Case, a founder of Priceline.com, “but we weren’t sure where it would go. We worked together to build out a framework, which we started testing in March with Ashton.” It turned out to be ideal: First, it had a simple, twitterable message — “Every 30 seconds, a kid dies of malaria. Nets save lives” — and an affordable call to action: $10 buys a net. The goal was to drive people to Malaria No More’s Web site to donate.
But the Katalyst team decided to up the ante. At that point, @aplusk had 750,000 followers on Twitter. Using Kutcher’s celebrity as a lever, they unilaterally launched a race against CNN — the next-most-popular Twitterer — to be the first to have 1 mil-lion followers. The deadline: April 25. If Kutcher won, he promised to donate 10,000 nets and encouraged other celebrities to give too. “It would either work or I’d be out of a job,” says Ross, laughing. CNN, suddenly part of the story, agreed to match Kutcher’s contribution, and Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer, and Larry King all gave the race airtime. Katalyst and the Malaria No More team hit the Web with videos, tweets, Facebook updates, and blog posts. “Our servers melted. We had more traffic in April than the prior 12 months combined,” says Case, who consulted routinely with Chernin on strategy. “Everyone who said they’d donate did,” he says, sounding very Hollywood. “Diddy, Seacrest, and Oprah — they all were intrigued by the echo Ashton created.” Final tally: nearly 90,000 nets. (Ever the closer, Case says donations can still be made at malarianomore.com.) Meanwhile, Kutcher’s own strength in the social-media marketplace was assured; he has the largest Twitter following on the planet
NBC’s Meet the Press this week had interviews with Rick Warren, Pastor and Author, and Bill and Melinda Gates, philantropists, about what they are thankful for and work that is ongoing in the global health arena.
Both interviews are insightful and show the important hearts of leaders that are fighting to end disease, like malaria, and poverty throughout the world. The Gates’ interview specifically looks at the two being “impassionate optimists” and their pledge to make a difference in the global health arena – partnering with governmental programs.
Randa Kuziez is a Faiths Act Fellow with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and Inter Faith Youth Core. She works in DC at the Malaria Policy Center and wrote this message for Eid.
“Eid Al Adha, or the “Festival of Sacrifice”, will begin Friday the 25th and go through the 29th. It is a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims Worldwide to commemorate the sacrifice made by Prophet Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice that which was most dear-his son Ismail. This holiday is a reminder of Abraham’s willingness to submit himself absolutely to the will of God. Eid Al Adha falls during the month of Hajj, or the pilgrimage Muslims make to Makkah once in their lives. Eid is usually celebrated by prayer, spending time with friends and family, and giving to the less fortunate.
It’s with great pleasure I share the Eid greetings with the rest of the community involved in eradicating malaria, as it reminds me of a time when I saw families in Mali sacrifice possessions they had while preparing for Eid in hopes of making it special day for their family– buying gifts, making clothes for their children, and distributing meat in the community. This experience added much significance to a holiday that I normally celebrate with my family in St. Louis.
As a Faiths Act Fellow at the Policy Center, I want to remind you of the importance of remembering and sacrificing for the betterment of our local and global community-whether it is our time, efforts, or wealth. A lovely gift for Eid for families vulnerable to Malaria would be the purchase of a bed net in honor of a friend or a family member, or to invite contacts to get familiar with the global effort to eradicate malaria by 2015, and get them involved!
May the feast bring happiness and joy to all those celebrating it!”
The Ghana national soccer team, affectionately known as the Black Stars, dedicated their recent World Cup qualifying match to raising awareness about malaria.
The Kumasi Baba Yara stadium, where the match was played, saw various advocacy actions by the Stars in a bid to dramatize the affect that malaria has had on the people of Ghana and the need to use insecticide treated nets. The scoreboard bore various messages encouraging fans to adopt preventative measures.
“Malaria kills, let us kick it”, was the theme message and called on Ghanaians to get involved in the match to kick malaria out of the country. The message reflected, that akin to the national team’s success being a group effort, so too is the effort to rid Ghana of malaria.
The advocacy by the Ghana national team are part of the international United Against Malaria Campaign leading up to the 2010 World Cup.
The editors of PLoS Medicine are calling for a third-wave of malaria activisim in order to work against drug shortages.
They argue that there are now signs of an evolving “malaria activism” (akin to AIDS activism), which has scored two big successes. The first wave of malaria activism highlighted the gap between the huge burden of malaria and the tiny amount of international development assistance dedicated to its control. Such advocacy helped motivate donors to increase their malaria commitments. The second wave focused on making sure that the extra funding was used to purchase highly efficacious artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) rather than mono-therapies such as chloroquine, which are largely ineffective in Africa.
“These are big victories,” say the editors. “But one benchmark of successful ACT scale-up is whether the drugs are available at the point of care. One of us has just returned from a health reporting fellowship in East Africa, where he found that ACT ‘stock-outs’ (shortages) were common.”
AMFM financing is helping Tanzania to make malaria drugs more affordable providing them to more people suffering from the disease.
Minister for Health and Social Welfare Prof David Mwakyusa revealed this at the weekend when launching ‘United Against Malaria’ campaign in Tanzania.
Prof Mwakyusa conceded that the current price of between Sh14,000 and Sh18,000 per dose was too high for majority of Tanzanians to afford.
According to the minister, from June next year private sector players, through a special arrangement known as AMFM, will be allowed to import the drug at lower cost.
“This means that all patients who will be treated in private health facilities will have to pay not more than Sh400 for a dose of Allu,” he said. Prof Mwakyusa said the move would contribute immensely in reducing malaria prevalence in the country as most people would afford the drug.
Making malaria drugs more affordable will get a long way in the fight to end the disease.
Scott Case, CEO of Malaria No More, has an entry on Huffington Post on the fight against malaria and it is timely as the Twilight series is out with another vampire movie.
Like so many parents of middle school-aged girls across the country, my house was filled with excitement this weekend as the newest movie in the Twilight Saga series, “New Moon”, hit theaters. As the anticipation was building to a fever pitch, I took refuge at the office — but found that my work has more to do with vampires than I realized.
Let me clarify: no, I do not do battle with vampires. Rather, I take on a different kind of “creature of the night” — the anopheles mosquito, which treacherously transmits the malaria parasite from person to person. So as it turns out, mosquitoes and vampires have a lot in common. They both come out at night, they’re both bloodsuckers and they can both kill their victims. But there’s one important difference: vampires aren’t real. Malaria is.
Malaria kills nearly 3,000 children in Africa every single day, but it doesn’t have to be this way. We’ve all heard that garlic and holy water ward off vampires, yet families can likewise defend themselves against malaria with simple tools. Malaria is preventable and treatable, and the world is working to provide access to tools like mosquito nets, safe indoor spraying and effective medicine to help every family in Africa protect themselves from the bite of a malaria-carrying mosquito.
