• by Johanna Treblin (united nations)
• Wednesday, April 25, 2012
• Inter Press Service

Every minute, one child dies from malaria, yet the malaria rates have decreased by more than a third in the past decade, the World Health Organization WHO reports in the wake of World Malaria Day on Tuesday.

The United Nations Foundation's ‘Nothing But Nets’ campaign therefore is trying to gather funding for bed nets to be used mainly in Africa.

'We have to attract people like magnets,' U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said on Monday during a reception at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

The ‘Nothing But Nets’ campaign not only distributes simple bed nets, but insecticide-treated ones, which work in two ways: On the one hand they stop mosquitoes from biting at night and spreading the disease.

On the other hand the insecticide kills the mosquitoes landing on the nets, preventing them from flying on to find another victim.

The bed nets especially work for the Anopheles mosquitoes which feed at night.

According to the U.N. Foundation, there are more than 200 million cases of malaria each year, and more than 600.000 of those infected die from the disease.

Those who are at greatest risk of being infected and also of dying from the disease are children under five years of age, who are accounting for more than 90 percent of deaths from malaria.

The U.N. foundation states that bed nets can reduce malaria transmissions by 90 percent in areas with high coverage rates.

Although critics say that the bed nets are often not properly used due to lack of knowledge, the U.N. Foundation says that 96 percent of the people with access to bed nets make use of them.

'The campaign ensures that families are educated on their proper hanging, use — including the necessity of sleeping under the net every night — and care,' Danielle Ramacciotti of the U.N. Foundation told IPS.

'We have data that shows that when bed nets have exhausted their three- to five-year lifespan, people recycle them for other creative purposes,' she added.

('One child per minute is still one child too many,' Ray Chambers, United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria, said on Monday.'By 2015 we expect not one child dying from malaria,' Chambers added.)

Fight against malaria is part of MDGs 'Whether the malaria map will keep shrinking or be reclaimed by the malaria parasites, depends, to a great extent, on the resources that will be invested in control efforts over the next years,' the U.N. foundation states in a press brief.

According to the U.N. Foundation, 3.4 billion U.S. dollars are needed until the end of 2014 in order to reach the U.N. Millennium Development goal of eradicating malaria until 2015.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 — form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions.

At the reception this Monday, Ban Ki-Moon and Ray Chambers were accompanied by 'gentle giant' [quote by Chambers] and NBA legend Shaquille O’Neill, Special Representative to the Roll Back Malaria Partnership Princess Astrid of Belgium and current Miss Universe Leila Lopes from Angola.

For World Malaria Day 2012, the U.N. Foundation’s ‘Nothing But Nets’ campaign is working to send 100,000 bed nets to refugees escaping violence on the South Sudan border.

According to the U.N. Foundation, in Africa, malaria deaths have been cut by one third within the last decade; outside of Africa, 35 out of the 53 countries, affected by malaria, have reduced cases by 50 percent in the same time period.

In countries where access to malaria control interventions has improved most significantly, overall child mortality rates have fallen by approximately 20 percent.

© Inter Press Service (2012) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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