News-Letter

Malaria is easy to overlook because it is not a pressing public health issue in the United States. Along with a slew of other infectious diseases, malaria has nearly been extinguished here. But malaria remains a leading cause of death worldwide, infecting between 300 and 500 million people annually and resulting in at least one million deaths each year.

The most tragic aspect of this global battle is that the majority of victims are those least able to fight back: children. An infant lying in the hot sun of sub-Saharan Africa, Central and South America, or Southeast Asia is the ideal target for a female Anopheles mosquito infected with the malaria plasmodium, a parasitic single-celled protozoan. One bite is all it will take for parasites to travel from the mosquito's gut into the child's bloodstream and then on to the liver.

The incubation period, during which time the parasites grow and multiply while the person remains asymptomatic, can range from eight days to many months. The end result, however, is invariably the same as the parasites enter red blood cells and then cause the cells to burst and release toxins. It is these toxins that begin the path of destruction through the child's body.

More likely than not, this child will become yet another one of the malaria fatalities that occur every 30 seconds in Africa.

Treatment for malaria, where available, involves the use of a wide variety of drugs. Such treatment is prohibitively expensive for those most in need, not always effective, and, most importantly, almost entirely irrelevant to the best way to fight malaria: prevention.

The insecticide-treated bed net is a prophylactic alternative capable of reducing the number of malaria fatalities in endemic regions by 20 percent, which means 200,000 lives saved every year. This mode of prevention costs no more than five dollars. Put simply, the amount that the average American spends on a Happy Meal is the same amount that could be used to save a life.

Even as the world suffers from more cases of malaria than in any other time in history, the situation is not hopeless. Schools of medicine and public health, governmental and non-governmental organizations and pharmaceutical companies have all joined efforts to prevent and treat malaria throughout developing nations.

Existing antimalarial drugs are being distributed for free or in reduced prices in many countries and a large amount of funding is being invested in developing even more pharmaceuticals to fight malaria for significantly less money and with fewer doses.

These initiatives represent a good start to eradicating malaria worldwide, but until everyone who can help does so, the burden of disease will remain ever-present. In this spirit, the JHU International Services-Red Cross student organization is presenting Malaria Awareness Month throughout October.

A series of events will educate the Hopkins community about this disease and proceeds from these events, as well as those raised at the collection tables which will be set up across campus, will be used to purchase as many insecticide-treated bed nets as possible for distribution in African nations.

Although malaria is fierce and widespread, collective action can once again prove to be the greatest source of progress for the world.

-- Jason Liebowitz is a sophomore public health major writing for the American Red Cross chapter on the Homewood campus.

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