CRS President Reflects On the Impact of Malaria

I was living in rural Ghana in 1968 when I first contracted malaria. It started with a high fever, shaking chills, sweating, intense joint and muscle pain, and uncontrollable nausea and abdominal cramps. The symptoms became easy to identify each time I contracted the disease — three times in total — over the course of my career as a humanitarian aid worker. But each time, I was given immediate medical attention and a series of anti-malarial medication, a luxury not often available to those suffering in Africa and elsewhere.

Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite (plasmodium), which is transmitted from human to human by the bite of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. This year alone, 300 to 500 million individuals, mainly in Africa, will fall ill to the disease, and over one-million will die. According to the Global Program on Malaria, the disease costs the African continent 12 billion dollars a year.

As we observe Africa Malaria Day, we are called to reflect on the horrific devastation these mosquitoes can have on development when they transmit malaria to humans. Even unborn children are not immune. Malaria is a major cause of low birth weight babies and perinatal deaths. And of those who succumb to the disease, the vast majority will be children under the age of five.

For the school-age child, malaria leads to absenteeism and failure to keep pace with studies. Some children might not contract malaria, but are still impacted as many drop out before graduation to farm the fields or work in factories when their sick parents are unable to work.

For adults, malaria means lost wages and lagging economic productivity. Farmers in Africa lose up to 2 months of work per year because of malaria.

Families in the developing world often face a heart-rending choice between buying medicine for a family member or food for the whole household. Those families who have made a concerted effort to adopt appropriate livelihood strategies and who appear on their way to improving food security and savings see their gains wiped out with just one bout of malaria.

Treated bed nets are a simple, effective and inexpensive solution to prevent malaria, but most families do not have the funds to purchase nets for each family member. As such, bed nets can be a source of struggle between family members trying to decide who should have priority in sleeping under the sole household net. Should it be the small child or the wage earner?

Thankfully, this issue is starting to fade as more and more global attention is paid to the eradication of malaria. In Zambia, for example, a public-private partnership has been assembled to distribute 500,000 mosquito bed nets to the most vulnerable households in the country. The price tag for such an initiative is approximately $2.5 million, a small price to pay to save thousands of lives. Locally too, households are beginning to recognize the overwhelming benefits of bed nets and other simple techniques for controlling malaria. Many communities are banding together to get rid of standing water, which are perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

But a lot more still needs to be done. I call upon global donors, businesses, non-governmental organizations and governments to learn from households in the developing world that we can all control malaria. We need to find effective ways for policies, structures and systems to prioritize the fight against the disease. Malaria is not only a public health problem, but an economic one as well. Global donors can play a key role in making certain that agricultural projects are as actively engaged in the fight against malaria as public health initiatives are. If every person in Africa living in infected malaria zones slept under a bed net, imagine the positive impact it would have on livelihoods, education and health. It would mean more food on the table for poor families, greater school attendance, and fewer household expenses for medicines.

While utilizing bed nets is a powerful preventative measure, they are "quick fixes." There needs to be effective and safe long-term eradication of the mosquito that causes malaria. I call upon government and business decision-makers to think in terms of the total environment when deciding long-term eradication programs. Drought and inappropriate irrigation practices, which often result in vast areas of stagnant water, are some of the factors that threaten food security of people in Africa. In that context, we need to make certain that long-term eradication of the mosquitoes goes hand-in-hand with improved environmental and agricultural policies throughout the world.

On this Africa Malaria Day we need to consider ourselves as one human family, one global household. The question should not be "who should sleep under the only bed net," but "how can we ensure that we are all protected from this dreaded disease?"