Never Be Silent

I get to share good news! From CNN, an editorial about the initiatives undertaken on the island of Zanzibar to eradicate malaria. Excerpt:

ZANZIBAR, Tanzania — I recently accompanied Margaret Chan, Director General of the WHO, and Ray Chambers, U.N. Special Envoy for Malaria, on a trip to Africa to see firsthand the region’s fight against malaria.

The single most memorable image of the trip was from a pediatric hospital ward on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar: a dozen beds and not a single patient in them. Imagine that.

I have searing memories of visiting wards much like this elsewhere in the world where there were as many as three children to a bed and more sleeping on the floor, deathly ill with malaria.

Where have all the patients gone? After all, malaria is a big killer in much of the developing world. It is probably the most prevalent disease that mankind has ever suffered.

Each year, there are over 250 million cases and almost one million deaths — most of them young children, and the vast majority in Africa.

But in many countries, malaria is also a success story. Since 2000, the number of reported malaria cases, deaths, or both has declined by at least half in 25 countries. Zanzibar — a relatively small but striking example — has virtually eliminated the disease over the past five years. These successes show what a combination of political will, technical resources, and financial commitment can do when applied to a strategy that works.