World Malaria Day: ACT will double bed net numbers

Sunday, April 25, 2010

  • Healthcare worker and malaria netsHealthcare worker Evelina Lulangasi participated in malaria prevention and treatment trainings hosted by LWR and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania.  
  • Malaria trainingIn a malaria training in the Ngaruma Lutheran Parish near Marangu, Tanzania, these women are showing people how to properly use a bednet.
  • "Malaria is treatable if you go see a doctor early," "Malaria is treatable if you go see a doctor early," says explains this boy at a malaria training in the Ngaruma Lutheran Parish near Marangu, Tanzania.

ACT will double bet nets

The ACT Alliance will double the number of mosquito nets it distributes this year. In marking World Malaria Day on April 25, ACT says it will increase the number of nets to 2.7 million from 1.3m last year. Over the last three years, an estimated 18m people have received nets, or had instruction on malaria prevention.

The alliance does the bulk of its malaria work in sub-Saharan countries where the global burden of malaria falls greatest.

Each year, 247m cases of malaria are reported globally, with 212m in Africa. Of the 881,000 people who died of the disease last year, 91 percent of the deaths were in Africa.

As well as distributing nets, ACT uses a variety of programmes and messages in its health campaigns.  It runs programmes to encourage people to use nets, teaches malaria prevention and treatment and provides hospitals with malaria drugs.

The human cost of malaria is now untenable, ACT says.

ACT General Secretary John Nduna reiterated the call for increased commitment to fighting malaria.

“It is painful to see lives of children cut short, to see expecting women dying, to see health institutions without essential drugs and equipment. Our faith compels us to work to eliminate malaria,” he said.

Tim McCully, ACT’s malaria working group chair, said the alliance played a critical role in efforts to eliminate malaria, especially instilling a culture of using mosquito nets. The faith community was needed in malaria prevention, he said.

“The value-added of ACT is that nearly 80 percent of ACT members are in countries affected by malaria. People trust the churches.”

ACT stresses the need to look at malaria as a development issue. If malaria had been eliminated years ago, as it could have been, money now being used to combat malaria would have been invested in development.

ACT is an alliance of church-based organizations working in 125 developing countries worldwide. It has a total income of US$1.5 billion a year.