Juan Manuel Suàrez del Toro, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Today, on World Malaria Day, 3,000 children will die of malaria. This year, it will kill more than one million people. When faced with such disastrous statistics, it can be easy for us to feel overwhelmed – to see malaria as another problem that is too big and too complex. The reality is different: malaria is 100 per cent preventable. But action must be taken before the mosquito bites.
At the end of the last century, the international community pledged to win the battle against malaria. Through the Millennium Development Goals and the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, governments, international organizations and NGOs committed themselves, by 2010, to reduce the burden of malaria by half compared with 2000, as well as providing massively scaled up treatment and protection for at risk populations.
These lofty goals are achievable, and massive gains are being made.
Malarial mosquitoes bite and infect between dusk and dawn, when particularly vulnerable groups like children under five are in bed. Long-lasting, insecticide-treated nets are therefore extraordinarily effective against the disease. They are also incredibly cost effective.
Since 2002, the Red Cross and Red Crescent has, in partnership with other organizations, distributed over 12 million nets across sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. These nets have saved 280,000 lives. In Rwanda alone the introduction of effective treatment and large scale net distribution has reduced the number of malaria cases and deaths by two thirds in two years.
Djeneba Sou is one of our volunteers. Last December, he was one of 2,500 trained Red Cross volunteers from Mali who took part in a net distribution campaign. The role of Red Cross Red Crescent volunteers like Djeneba in these campaigns is simple, but so powerful. They explain the effectiveness of nets and then distribute them, free of charge. Then they visit homes to show families how to hang the nets properly, an intervention that is repeated before the start of each rainy season, when the number of malaria cases rises.
In just one week, Djeneba and his fellow volunteers helped reach 2.8 million Malian children.
A recent survey conducted in Sierra Leone at the end of a countrywide distribution campaign showed a 23 per cent increase in the use of nets following a visit by a community-based volunteer. The simple, local interventions of our volunteers make a huge difference.
Today, the Red Cross Red Crescent urges the international community to increase its support for campaigns like these. The cost of each net is US$7 and that includes distribution and follow up visits.
But at the other end of the equation, the economic and human cost of failing to act is and will continue to be catastrophic. In countries where malaria is endemic, it accounts for about 40 per cent of national public health expenditure.
We know what to do and we know how to do it. We can beat this terrible disease. We can save hundreds of thousands of young lives every year and we can free up economies to begin to address the myriad of other challenges that continue to hold back development across Africa. It is so clear. Tomorrow, 3,000 children do not have to die from malaria.