Africa Malaria Day 2006

Its today and there's new hope. Every year a million people die of malaria -- and not surprisingly enough 90% of these deaths occur in Africa. You have The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria and of course there's the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and their initiatives as well. (There's a nice article in the Washington post on how they've used their clout to get pharmaceuticals to do what's right instead of what's profitable not just on the Malaria front but for AIDS and other pressing global health concerns. The headline graphic clearly shows that we'll do just enough to make our nation's "philanthropy" a statistic but not enough to make the difference -- we'll leave saving the world to the billionaires-with-souls). In an AllAfrica.com article I read this morning a former Minister of Health of Senegal says ...growing awareness of the burden malaria imposes on societies trying to develop economically and the availability of the new class of artiminisin-based drugs has given renewed impetus to the effort. Awareness. Of course that's a big piece of the pie. But, what I'd like to know is why Bill Gates is managing to do what the WHO and World Bank supposedly pour so much money into while managing to operate a billion dollar corporation that sucks the life out of their workers (to be discussed later).

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided initial funding for the Malaria Control and Evaluation Partnership in Africa (Macepa), whose intensive work in Zambia is aimed at modeling a comprehensive, coordinated nationwide effort to cut malaria-related deaths by 75 percent within three years. After a year of planning and initial action, Macepa has brought over a dozen international partners into a collaboration with Zambian government interventions to create an integrated response.

Malawi, one of the few countries spared from conflict like many of its neighbors, is one of ten African countries taking part in the initial phase of the quick-impact initiative on malaria that will try to follow the protocols used in Zambia. Granted, the UN and their initiatives are key to solving the 'there are too many poor and sick in Africa' problem(s)....what's just not clear is why in 2004 this initiative for using ACTs was put on paper knowing it is too expensive for these countries to implement independent of private (namely pharmaceutical) involvement. And when I say involvement I mean making these drugs available to them one way or the other (get your money from Bill Gates, grow a conscience, a combination of the above...etc).

Disclaimer: I am new to most of the development issues that I might comment on. Blogging about all this is just a release of mental energy and a way for me to take my DatelineHealthAfrica.net volunteer experience to heart. Feel free to point me in the right direction any time!