“Everyone has a role to play, and only then it can be done, against the target date of 2015, date set for achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),’’ said Youssou Ndour,”I am a winner when I commit to something, and I go up to the end,” the Senegalese star said at the press conference.
Youssou N’Dour is working with Malaria No More on a public awareness campaign about malaria in Senegal called Xeex Sibbiru. The press conference was held in conjunction with the launch of Phase II of the campaign.
ONE has posted an update on the first class of Malaria Griots! The blog is posted below and can be found here.
Watch out malaria. Thirty-three Malaria Griots are coming for you.
We at ONE and Malaria No More are extremely proud to introduce the very first class of Malaria Griots. As we shared in earlier posts, the Malaria Griots Project (beta edition) is an interactive program designed to train passionate volunteers into powerful spokespersons in the fight against malaria.
We put out a call for entries—and we were completely wowed by the applications we received. We have an inaugural class of 33—and they’re an unbelievable group. We also have a few auditors taking part to help us evaluate the course. We deliberately chose a smaller group of Griots this time around as this is our beta launch and these folks are the pioneers that will lead the way for lots more people to follow.
Here are a few fun stats on the class:
18: Total number of states represented
10: Under the age of 30
8: Teachers/Professors/Students
6: Over the age of 50
5: People who have contracted malaria
2: Financial analysts
2: Kenyans
1: Voice actor
1: Number of applicants who ran a marathon for malaria
Class officially kicks-off this Sunday, and over the next four months, Malaria Griots will take part in live discussions with leading malaria experts, witness stories of Africans fighting to overcome the disease, work with engaging multimedia content, and ultimately become a leading advocate in the fight against malaria. We’ll keep you posted on the Malaria Griots Project (beta edition) over the coming months, so make sure to check back for updates.
You can check out the full class by clicking “more” below:
Sarah Boseley of the Guardian has written about the work of the all-party parliamentary committee on malaria in the UK and the belief that we can eradicate malaria in our life time.
O’Brien is the chairman of the all-party parliamentary committee on malaria in the UK. He is much the same age as Gates, he tells me, though there probably the resemblance ends. He is a health spokesman in David Cameron’s party and may well be part of the next government. And he was born in Tanzania, remembers DDT spraying when he was a child, and has been involved in the fight against malaria for the last 30 years.
The point is that there has been for some time a growing sense that malaria could be stamped out – if not across the planet then from much of it. O’Brien credits Bill and Melinda Gates with triggering this in November 2007. “They said we are going to set it as an objective to eradicate malaria within our lifetimes. It was hugely ambitious and radical,” said O’Brien. Clearly he wants to believe it. But other people now want to as well.
Today his committee published a report that he describes as “a huge stock-take of the whole approach”. Some things are going really well. There are now long-lasting insecticide impregnated bednets, for instance, and 30% of those who need a bednet in malarial regions have them. The artimisinin drug combinations are working well. There is a possible vaccine on the horizon. Against that, there is drug resistance on the Cambodian border, which is where chloroquine first began to fail in the 1950s before it lost effectiveness in Africa, increasing bednet coverage to 100% is going to be hard and that vaccine is probably only around 50% effective.
It was my first night in that Kenyan village – actually, it was less a village and more a loose collection of huts and gardens on the slopes of a hill.
The headmaster of our little school was driving me along the mud paths that I would get to know so well. But that night, as we bounced along in his old Toyota, with only his headlights and the distant cooking fires breaking up the darkness, I had no idea where we were going.
We finally stopped in a small clearing with a large bonfire off to one side. A small, loose crowd, their backs to us, gathered in front of the fire. No one turned to look as we stopped the car and climbed out. As we slowly made our way through the field of figures, the headmaster would murmur, “pole” (sorry), “pole sana” (so sorry).
As we approached the fire, the sound of wailing drifted upwards. I had never heard wailing before that night, and I never want to hear it again. It’s an eerie, lonely, plaintive song that is alien to Western ears. It’s not just crying or sobbing. It’s something else, and it burns an impression in the soul of all who listen.
As we approached the front of the gathering, I saw the source of that sound: a cluster of women were holding each other, and one had her arms extended up toward Heaven. A dozen feet in front of them were the figures of two young children, wrapped in white, with innocent faces. The light of the fire bounced off their exposed skin.
As the wailing continued, we walked over to the two small bodies, and paused for a moment in front of them. We visibly prayed, and then slowly made our way back through the gathered villagers.
Later, as we drove away, Thomas broke the silence. “Teacher, they were twin boys, one year old, who died just yesterday. They died of measles.”
After a moment I said, “Measles . . .you don’t die of measles.”
“You do here,” Thomas responded. “These children . . .their systems are so weakened by malaria and bad water and poor food. Really, they died of those things….measles just pushed them over. Teacher, I wanted you to see this.”
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When we read about health challenges in poor countries, we naturally see them and evaluate them through “American eyes.” In America, you’re either sick or you’re healthy . . . one or the other. But in much of the world, especially in many parts of Africa, the reality is very different.
So many infants and children are struck by malaria, and far too many –up to 3,000 per day – are killed. Many of those who survive their initial bout with malaria are left with severe physical and mental challenges. When their condition is combined with such other factors as poor nutrition, their systems are so weakened that extremely vulnerable to a wide range of illnesses – illnesses that a strong child would survive, but a weakened child cannot.
In many of the countries where there’s been a concentrated effort to lift malaria’s deadly shadow, we’ve also seen progress in reducing all cause child mortality. While I’m hardly a doctor or scientist, I can’t help but believe that the foregoing is one reason why.
The East African is reporting on rebuttals by Ugandan leadership to a recent WHO report that increase malaria cases are a result of less effective and reduced quality drugs spreading across a number of nations in Africa.
Contrary to a recent World Health Organisation survey, Ugandan researchers say the problem of increased resistance to malarial drugs is more likely related to improper use of medications than the presence of fake and poor-quality medications.
This non-compliant behaviour among Ugandan patients stems primarily from cultural beliefs and ignorance, said Dr Myers Lugemwa, the officer in charge of malaria research at the ministry of health.
And this pattern could significantly increase resistance to treatment if not addressed, he warned.
While acknowledging the presence of fake and poor-quality drugs, Dr Lugemwa invokes Uganda’s policy for ensuring the quality and safety of malaria medications.
“We cannot just have people die because the drugs are not good,” he told The EastAfrican. “We have tested them and found them effective.”
Read the rest of the coverage here. We have reported on the scandal when the WHO report was released and we will continue to monitor developments and the needs for more prevention tools to end deaths from malaria.
For your Friday enjoyment. This is a music video from Tanzania and their Zinduka Malaria Haikubaliki campaign which Malaria No More launched last weekend.
The Daily Caller published an oped from Mark Green on the need to continue foreign assistance reform with a realization that aid to nations around the globe not only is the right thing to do but benefits America’s interests.
Some key points from the essay:
Since fighting the threat of terrorism is perhaps this generation’s greatest challenge, we need robust funding for the very tools that can help prevent terrorism from spreading and growing. Let’s be clear: poverty does not cause terrorism. However, poverty can lead to despair, and despair is a condition that extremists know how to exploit…
We’re in the midst of a quiet revolution in foreign assistance that began early in the Bush administration, and is going just as strong into the Obama years. Through the creation of smart, new development programs and the initiation of much-needed reforms to our existing aid infrastructure, we have greatly expanded the reach and efficacy of our foreign assistance activities…
There’s no denying the fiscal challenges that our elected leaders have on their plate. But there’s also no denying how much of a difference our foreign assistance programs are making in key parts of the world. I hope that our leaders keep these thoughts in mind as the budget season—and political season—moves forward.
Read the whole piece at the Daily Caller and leave your comments here and on that site.
Mark Green spoke yesterday to the 2010 Symposium on Health Disparities for the American University College of Law. During his talk, Mark highlighted the need to expand global health work to integrate efforts for greater effectiveness.
The Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network has posted some video of Malaria Policy Center Director, Mark Green, talking about the importance of assistance reform.
It is a “brief interview with Ambassador Mark Green, former Republican Congressman from Green Bay, Wisc. and ambassador to Tanzania. Ambassador Green, currently the Managing Director of the Malaria No More Policy Center in Washington, DC, explains why conservatives should engage in foreign assistance reform and how effective U.S. foreign assistance is in our national interest.”
