Yesterday we blogged about Jessica Uno, a junior at Stanford University who is reporting on the ground in Kenya through Malaria No More. In the past few days, Jessica has been posting some terrific and insightful accounts of what she’s seen, including this report from Mwea Mission Hospital.

Excerpts from the post below. You can continue follow Jessica’s trip in real time on MNM’s Buzzwords Blog here.

Once we arrived at Mwea, we met Dr. John, director of the Vector Control Center at Mwea Mission Hospital. The outdoor hospital is four hours away from the next hospital and served a large patient body. The large rice paddies in that region force hospitals to be far apart. Dr. John and Jane told us about how they had reduced malaria occurrences to almost 0% in the area surrounding the hospital, through a combination of prevention and treatment measures. They pushed large campaigns to encourage the community to consistently sleep under pesticide-treated bed nets and made sure powerful ACTs were readily available for those with malaria. A large problem in applying our existing tools for fighting malaria is patient compliance. You can give a bed net to family, but if left alone, families will often misuse them or use them inconsistently. The same goes true with ACTs – often patients feel better after a day or two of treatment and stop taking their medicines. Creative strategies are necessary to motivate consistent net usage and compliance with malaria treatments. One of Mwea’s strategies includes portraying nets as “fashionable,” by having respected community leaders show friends and families that the frequently using nets are critical to avoiding mosquitoes. Malaria is preventable and not a fact of life, using the slogan “mosquito out, we are in the net together!” Rather than imposing the nets on the community, Mwea Mission Hospital was successful in encouraging net use in culturally sensitive, sustainable ways that actively involved community members.

Jessica Uno, a junior at Stanford University, recently won the “World Briefing: Telling the Malaria Story” contest, earning her a spot on the frontlines of the malaria fight. This week, she will be reporting from the 2009 MIM (Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Pan-African) Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

Jessica will interview malaria experts and journalists; learn about new technologies and approaches to fighting the disease; and travel to a local clinic for an insider’s perspective on the malaria fight. She will report back on her findings and experiences via guest blog posts on our Buzzwords Blog and she’ll be Tweeting regularly from her Malaria No More twitter name, @JunoMNM.

The World Briefing contest is co-sponsored by Malaria No More and Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation and raises awareness about the race to save lives.

Be sure to check Jessica’s blog posts and follow her on Twitter to get the inside scoop on the latest news and trends from the front-lines of the global effort to end malaria deaths.

Malaria No More’s blog “Buzzwords” picked up this story about a really innovative new way to provide malaria patients with easy access to life-saving anti-malarial medication– through cell phones and text messaging, of course.

Called “SMS for Life”, this pilot project is headed by Roll Back Malaria in collaboration with Vodafone and IBM and seeks to “harness everyday technology to eliminate stock-outs and improve access to essential medicines in sub-Saharan Africa.” By using a combination of mobile phones, SMS messages and electronic mapping technology, “SMS for Life” can enable a more efficient system for tracking and managing medical supplies.

Earlier this week we blogged about other breakthroughs in using cell phones to help fight poverty and disease, something that’s becoming more and more of a trend. Check out “SMS for Life”s website here, and check back on the ONE Blog for further developments on this front.

Check out this blog post from our friends at Malaria No More

Recently, I traveled to Los Angeles for the first match of FC Barcelona’s summer tour, played against Major League Soccer’s LA Galaxy. Although the teams were competitors on the field (Barça won 2-1 after an intense match!) they came together to show their commitment to a common cause: the fight against malaria.

On Friday evening, the LA Galaxy and AEG hosted a dinner to welcome FC Barcelona to the States and highlighted soccer’s leadership in ending malaria deaths through the United Against Malaria campaign.

FC Barcelona and Major League Soccer have battled malaria off the field for a long time. Now, with the same “goal” of kicking malaria off the field for good, soccer teams and malaria organizations are teaming up for United Against Malaria, an initiative to shine a spotlight on the malaria crisis in Africa during the lead-up to the 2010 World Cup—the first World Cup on African soil.

At the event, United Against Malaria welcomed Tim Leiweke (President and CEO of AEG), Don Garber (Commissioner of Major League Soccer) and Joan Laporta (President of FC Barcelona) as United Against Malaria Champions. In addition, LA Galaxy superstar Landon Donovan, considered the best soccer player ever produced by the United States, announced that he will be a Captain, or leading spokesman of the United Against Malaria team. Tim and Don surprised everyone by announcing a $25,000 donation to the fight against malaria as a welcome gift to FC Barcelona.

During the match, a United Against Malaria video played for the crowd of 90,000 and FC Barcelona wore special United Against Malaria jerseys onto the field to help spread the word.

The soccer community is rallying to end malaria deaths—will you join the winning team?

United Against Malaria Presentation from United Against Malaria on Vimeo.

-Emily Bergantino, Malaria No More

Check out this great opportunity from our friends at Malaria No More!

Calling all undergrads! Did you miss your opportunity to join the ONE Campus Challenge trip to Africa with Bryant, Melissa, Stephanie, Steven and Tomas? Well, here’s a second chance to travel to Kenya and report back on progress in the fight against malaria.

Non-profit Malaria No More is teaming up with Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (makers of Coartem, one of the best malaria treatments) for the “World Briefing: Telling the Malaria Story” contest.

U.S. undergraduate students can enter to win a trip to Kenya for the MIM Pan-African Malaria Conference in Nairobi, November 2-6, 2009! Here’s your chance to test out your reporting skills at one of the biggest malaria events of the year. Learn about new technologies, innovative strategies and how the world is mobilizing to end malaria deaths in Africa by 2015—and report-back through blogs, Twitter, video diaries and more!

To enter, write a personal statement of 500 words explaining why you want to report on the latest news in Africa’s battle against malaria and how you can bring a fresh perspective. Send it along with a tweet (140 characters) to pitch why YOU are the best man or woman for the job.

Find out all the details, including entry information and eligibility at www.malarianomore.org/worldbriefing. The deadline is Friday, August 21st.

-Emily Bergantino, Malaria No More

Photos by Michael Stobe/Stobephotos

This weekend, I had the chance to represent Malaria No More and United Against Malaria—a new partnership of organizations, including ONE!, committed to fighting malaria—at the Nutmeg youth soccer tournament in Wilton, CT. On Sunday, Congressman Jim Himes (Connecticut-4), a member of the Congressional Malaria Caucus, joined 1,000 Connecticut kids to show his support for United Against Malaria.

While cheering on the youth players, Congressman Himes underscored the importance of supporting the ongoing fight against malaria, saying, “The chance to win a victory against malaria shows how we can reach ambitious goals both on the soccer field and in the global effort to improve health care worldwide.”

We couldn’t agree more! MNM had a great time hosting the United Against Malaria Speed Shot Contest, where players took time out from their team competition to test their individual skill, learn about malaria and help score against the disease! Families stopped by to donate a $10 lifesaving mosquito net and to learn more about United Against Malaria, and kids got the opportunity to take a shot and see how fast they could kick a soccer ball into a bed net goal. Winners in each age category received two tickets to a Major League Soccer game and United Against Malaria soccer jerseys.

Congressman Himes’s enthusiasm for the campaign was matched by the tournament organizers who saw the United Against Malaria campaign: “We are so proud to help raise awareness about malaria in the community and show our kids how they can help kids in Africa,” remarked Wilton Soccer Association President Andy Hoffman. “United Against Malaria shows just how important teamwork is to defeating malaria for once and for all.”

One thing was for sure: regardless of the final score, players at the Nutmeg tournament won a major victory against malaria. We hope that youth soccer players across the country will join us and the malaria community in standing United Against Malaria and help send malaria off the field for good!

-John Logsdon, Malaria No More

Actor Ashton Kutcher beat CNN to one million followers on the social media platform Twitter at 2:13am EST Friday. To celebrate his triumph over the network giant, Kutcher is sending 10,000 mosquito nets to help Malaria No More fight malaria in Africa. This will help protect 20,000 children from this disease-and raise awareness just in time for World Malaria Day on April 25th!

Kutcher is highlighting World Malaria Day on April 25th by mobilizing his Twitter followers to tweet about the disease and donate mosquito nets to Malaria No More. On Tuesday, Kutcher realized that he had over 850,000 followers on Twitter (making his Twitter feed the third most-followed after Britney Spears and CNN) and the gauntlet was thrown! In only a few short days, he has gotten tens of thousands of people to sign up to help him reach his goal and send mosquito nets to Africa. CNN joined in the fun and tracked the race to a million on air and on the web, with Larry King and Anderson Cooper urging their viewers to put CNN over the top—but in the end, Ashton carried the day!

Ashton Kutcher is leveraging the incredible power of Twitter to catalyze one of the biggest pro-social movements in history. This is an amazing model of how modern technology and social networking can be applied to a social issue, inspire millions of people and help save lives. Follow Ashton and congratulate him for his great work and for helping to save lives from malaria at http://twitter.com/aplusk.

Malaria No More is determined to end malaria deaths and is using every weapon in its arsenal.including new technologies to fight an ancient disease. Twitter has emerged as a robust vehicle for raising mass awareness and rallying the world to say NO MORE to malaria deaths. Follow Malaria No More on Twitter at http://twitter.com/malarianomore.

-Emily Bergantino, Malaria No More

World Malaria Day is just around the corner on April 25th—just 615 days away from the malaria community’s deadline to achieve universal access to malaria interventions in Africa by December 31, 2010. This year’s timely World Malaria Day theme, “Counting Malaria Out”, keeps the pressure on to reach our goal and save lives from this preventable and treatable disease.

Every second counts. The world needs to intensify its efforts in the months to come, building on the momentum of the accomplishments of recent years: significant reductions in deaths, growing political will in Africa and abroad, and unprecedented public awareness. We’re in a race to end malaria deaths…and we need your help to get there.

Malaria kills a child in Africa every 30 seconds and costs the continent $12 billion every year in lost productivity. It doesn’t have to be this way. We have the tools and the programs in place to end malaria deaths—help us support Africa in its efforts to break the cycle of sickness and poverty.

This World Malaria Day, Malaria No More is urging US leadership for continued support in the winning battle against malaria. Malaria offers an incredible opportunity for return-on-investment—exactly what the world is looking for in this economic climate. Help President Obama keep his campaign promise of joining with the global malaria community to end malaria deaths by 2015.

Join us on World Malaria Day as we focus on “Counting Malaria Out” and be part of the first great humanitarian success story of the 21st century—making malaria no more for once and for all.

Find out more at www.MalariaNoMore.org.

-Emily Bergantino, Malaria No More

My campus ONE group “The ONE Campaign- Baylor” partnered with “Malaria No More” recently to help brighten the futures of millions of individuals around the world suffering from malaria. We conducted a three week initiative designed to promote both awareness on campus and raise money to purchase mosquito nets to prevent malaria.

ONE worked with Baylor professors to lecture on malaria, which included a collaborative effort from the schools of business, journalism, arts and sciences, and social work. The group also did tabling events and handed out information to organizations on how they could raise money. At the end of the campaign, we raised more than $700 to purchase life saving bed nets and signed up an additional 300 students for ONE!

A special thanks goes to APO Service Organization, Baylor Transfer Council, Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, and Baylor’s American Medical Students Association (AMSA).

-Justin Kralemann, Texas ONE Member

Reporting to you live from outside the 2008 MDG Malaria Summit…

At the 2008 MDG Malaria Summit in New York today, global leaders in health, government and business announced over $3 billion in new malaria money to help spur the world toward ending malaria deaths by 2015 – making it the single biggest day for malaria announcements in the history of the fight against the disease.

Speakers including Bono, Gordon Brown, Bill Gates, President Kagame of Rwanda and President Kikwete of Tanzania discussed how far the world has come in recent years to combat malaria and how far we still have to go. Peter Chernin, President and COO of News Corporation and Malaria No More Chairman, helped moderate the event, adding that malaria is not an isolated disease but both a consequence and cause of extreme poverty.

Two of the biggest announcements were from the World Bank and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank, announced $1.1 billion as funding for Phase II of the World Bank Booster Program and Rajat Gupta, Chair of the Global Fund, announced Round 8 funding recommendations for malaria control efforts totaling $1.62 billion.

In celebrating the new commitments, grassroots support and political will that is driving the worldwide effort to end malaria deaths, event host UN Special Envoy for Malaria Ray Chambers urged the community not to become complacent. While today represents a big step forward, the race to end deaths – 3,000 children every day – is far from over.

For more information on the event and commitments, visit www.MalariaNoMore.org.

-Emily Bergantino, Communications Officer, Malaria No More