Apr 17, 2007

Malaria-Free Zones to Malaria-Free World

by Laura Starita

There are nearly 500 million malaria infections every year and 1 million deaths; most of those who die are women and children in sub-Saharan Africa. These numbers are well-publicized, and the public and private sectors have responded. From The Global Fund to George Bush’s President’s Malaria Initiative, to local governments, to private efforts such as the Nothing But Nets effort of the U.S. National Basketball Association, billions of dollars in funds and materials have been sent to Africa. Yet overall, there has been remarkably little progress. With global warming, many argue that malaria will get worse over the next decade.

But innovative approaches are showing promise. Some low-cost drugs have been developed and we recently wrote about efforts to genetically engineer mosquitoes to prevent the spread of malarial parasites. George Ayittey, a Ghanian economist at the American University in Washington, D.C., is leading an effort to make available anti-malaria approaches more effective. With funds raised by U.S. entrepreneurial donors, Ayittey is bypassing existing initiatives and setting up what he calls “malaria free zones,” individual towns or regions where his Free Africa Foundation delivers bed nets, medicines and insecticides. One such zone covers an area of 1,200 inhabitants. After a zone is established, Ayittey and his donors return at intervals to see how the towns there are faring. 

Mr. Ayittey says these return visits are what distinguish his efforts from other nongovernmental organizations, where the emphasis is on pushing money out the door, not tracking how it’s spent or whether it’s having an impact. “A typical NGO might come to Ayim [a Ghanian village] and distribute some bed nets,” he said, “but it’s more of a cultural event. There’s no follow-up.”

Effective innovation should always be applauded. But as the article points out, malaria-free zones are merely a stop-gap, and a small-scale one at that. If malaria isn’t dealt with in an entire region, it will likely return. Economic development, improved local public health infrastructure, and sharing of innovations like Ayittey’s are needed long-term to move from temporarily malaria-free zones to a malaria-free world. As in many other areas, the challenge is not innovation but moving an innovation from being novel to standard practice.

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