Article Link: ESA Irrevelant–and Deadly–Cuts in Foreign Assistance

As I was visiting hospitals and health huts in Senegal, I was also receiving e-mailed updates on House GOP budget cuts. The Global Fund, down 40 percent. Child survival programs, which include anti-malaria efforts, down 10 percent. AIDS relief, down 8 percent. Development assistance, down 30 percent.These reductions were intended to be symbolic, but what do they symbolize? Fiscal responsibility? Hardly. No one can reasonably claim that the budget crisis exists because America spends too much on bed nets and AIDS drugs. … Claiming courage or credit for irrelevant cuts in foreign assistance is a net subtraction from public seriousness on the deficit. So, do these cuts symbolize the Republican rejection of fuzzy-headed liberalism? Actually, the main initiatives on malaria and AIDS were created under Republican leadership.

via The Sider Center at Eastern University.

Newsweek Article: On the Trail of a Ferocious Killer-Malaria

This article from Newsweek, On the Trail of a Ferocious Killer: Health officials are mounting the boldest campaign against malaria in 50 years. Will it work this time?, discusses the what is being planned and warns that in order for this to succede it will require quite a bit of resolve on the part of the whole world.

The author warns:

But success is not guaranteed. Eradication is probably the greatest challenge in all of public health; it requires that commitment remain high even as infection rates drop and other causes start to look more compelling. Vaccine development will also be daunting; there is very little precedent for immunization against anything as tricky as the malaria parasite. And then there is the sheer difficulty of collecting enough money to pay for what needs to be done. Last week, as part of the GMAP rollout, world leaders committed $3 billion to malaria prevention—but also announced that to fully implement their plan, they’d actually need $5.3 billion for 2009, followed by $6.2 billion for 2010, plus another $900 million or so each year for scientific research. Eradication may turn out to be a luxury we can’t afford.

But I argue that it is one we must afford and it certainly is not a luxury. Children are some of the hardest hit by this disease, children in poor countries or communities. To a mother of one of these children, I don’t think she would ever consider it a luxury. We really need to reverse our priorities and especially here in the US we need to catch a vision for the world.

Some related links:

Help From People of Faith

Faith communities around the world have already done a great deal for the Millennium Development Goals in the past eight years. Their advocacy for change has encouraged and pushed governments forward. Their work in education and health, particularly in Africa, often unpublicized and unrecorded, has been an invaluable complement to government programs. The response of the faith communities to the HIV/AIDS epidemic has been widely recognized and has stimulated the growth of new and effective interfaith networks.

Malaria.Com

Unicef: Malaria

Roll Back Malaria Partnership

Global Strategic Plan to Roll Back Malaria 2005-2015 (PDF)

Some facts from the above document:

“Six out of eight Millennium Development
Goals can only be reached with
effective malaria control in place.”

“A child dies from Malaria
every 30 seconds.”

“Malaria costs African countries
US$ 12 billion each year.”

“Populations exposed to complex emergencies are highly vulnerable to malaria”

“58 per cent of malaria cases occur
in the poorest 20 per cent
of the world’s population.”

The Global Malaria Action Plan

Some Malaria Advocacy Groups

The Abuja Declaration: The African Summit on Roll Back Malaria (PDF)

Nothing But Nets

World Vision: Global Issues: Malaria

The President’s Malaria Initiative

The President’s Malaria Initiative E- newsletter

Africa Fighting Malaria

World Vision: Malaria Initiative

World Vision: Take Action: Contact Members of Congress