Malaria News

Lives will be sacrificed if we lose momentum, The Financial Times

By Ray Chambers

Published: April 23 2009 18:12 | Last updated: April 23 2009 18:12

At every stage of the global financial crisis, business leaders, government officials and ordinary individuals have searched for those investments that, despite the ravages of recent months, have managed to outdistance expectations.

An open and keen mind could lead those who oversee public assets to an unexpected candidate: eliminating deaths from malaria.

Resources dedicated to the global campaign against this disease have yielded encouraging developments – such as reductions in related deaths and the provision of lifesaving interventions at record levels – with the promise to deliver even greater returns.

No one could argue with the value of the result: enriched and preserved human lives. For this reason, at a time of economic uncertainty, maintaining a firm financial commitment to an enterprise that has performed as well as the fight against malaria makes not only sound business sense, but also profound human sense.

Every year, malaria claims the lives of nearly 1m people, most of them children. The disease exacts its steepest price in sub-Saharan Africa, where 90 per cent of all deaths from malaria occur.

Even those children who survive malaria can be scarred by cognitive deficiencies.

Malaria raises additional implications for pregnant mothers, who carry a higher risk of maternal mortality and may deliver low-birthweight babies, a major cause of infant mortality.

The mounting human toll invariably poses an enormous economic burden, especially in Africa, where the disease drains nearly $40bn from countries that otherwise could invest in programmes that would benefit their people.

Even so, as economies across the planet grapple with the downturn, the worldwide effort to end the loss and death inflicted by malaria has experienced historic advances.

Long-lasting insecticidal mosquito nets have been distributed to more than 40 per cent of the population in endemic African nations, compared with less than 10 per cent in 2005. Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and other countries have witnessed rapid intervention-induced declines in malaria deaths. In recent months, a broad collection of nations and partners has pledged more than $3bn to combat malaria.

These developments both reinforce and validate the call by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to supply all endemic countries essential malaria control interventions by December 31, 2010, and the declaration that the world can reach near-zero preventable deaths from malaria by 2015.

Reaching these targets will require the full participation of all key partners, especially faith-based institutions, which occupy a space of unquestioned influence in sub-Saharan Africa. Churches and mosques are natural distribution points for items such as nets, and volunteer structures are poised to deliver treatments to those in need.

For this reason, World Malaria Day highlights interfaith movements prepared to combat this disease, particularly as sub-Saharan Africa works to furnish even more children and families with essential protection.

As dedicated professionals in these nations design sophisticated distribution and supply-management plans, faith communities will lend credibility to messages encouraging people to sleep under nets every night.

Success in the implementation of this strategy over the next 20 months will translate into cumulative success for the entire continent.

But as governments and donors adjust their fiscal outlooks in the light of the global economic crisis, the fight against malaria is competing for ever more scarce assets.

It might be easy for those in many developed countries to overlook a disease that primarily affects distant populations. But a sound business practice in such circumstances is reinforcement, not retrenchment. On that basis, the fight against malaria will yield a return on investment that countries and citizens cannot ignore.

It would constitute an abrogation of both reason and compassion to pass up the opportunity to press home advances in the fight against malaria.

Quite simply, lives would be lost.

The world’s contributions to malaria have already delivered returns. More support will deliver even more in the way of rewards.

Ray Chambers is a philanthropist and humanitarian who has directed most of his efforts towards children. In 2008, the UN secretary-general appointed him as the first Special Envoy for Malaria.