Talking Malaria From On-The-Ground in Tanzania

(A guest post from Seth Amgott, who’s working now in Tanzania.)

As a visitor to Tanzania, I’m taking malaria medication, and I bet President and Mrs. Bush are, too. If you live here, you can’t take the medicine forever, so you get sick, and your children are at risk.

But as an American and a ONE member, I’m loving that we help Tanzanians do something about it. Malaria is basically gone from Zanzibar, an island of 1 million people where it used to be everywhere, and starting to come down on the mainland.

That will happen much faster with President Bush’s announcement today that the U.S. and the Global Fund will distribute 5.2 million vouchers for low-cost nets.

I understood the need when I met Godlove Kiwanga yesterday just after he left church. I asked about malaria – he had it three weeks ago, high fever, serious pain, and lost income for three days. “People with money, they stay home for one week, two weeks. I had to work.” His daughter, Carry, is 3, and she was sick in December for over a week and had to have an IV at the hospital.

Carry sleeps under a mosquito net, but not the good kind. You can get long-last nights near his house in the capital, but they cost about $9 each, a lot in a poor country. “We have net original and net fakes. Fakes are cheap, 2000 shillings (about $1.80). It’s a big difference,” he said.

His next child will probably get an upgrade. Two years ago, (more…)

Some Background Info For Us

Hi there,

President Bush took off for Benin last night, and will also visit Rwanda, Ghana, Tanzania, and Liberia in the next 6 days.

We expect the trip to cover several of the bipartisan programs ONE supporters have been supporting for years, such as PEPFAR, PMI, the MCA and AGOA.

The ONE policy staff, who we love, put together briefs on all of these topics so that you can peruse at your leisure during the next few days. As news pours in as to what our president is doing day-to-day on his Africa trip, I’ll likely be referring back to the stats in these quick, easy-to-read briefs.

• PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief)
• PMI (President’s Malaria Initiative)
• MCA (Millennium Challenge Account)
• AGOA (The African Growth and Opportunity Act)

.
-Virginia Simmons

Talking AIDS and Malaria Funding with the Bushes

During an interview aired on Saturday night, FOX News’ Bret Baier asks the Bushes about the administration’s $30 Billion package for AIDS and malaria programs in Africa.

The short conversation that ensues is about halfway through the clip below. (You’ll need Windows Media Player to watch it and it may take a minute to load.)

I also transcribed some excerpts from both Laura and George Bush.

First Lady Laura Bush:

“Economies depend on a … workforce, people who are in good health. If your workforce [is] sick with malaria half the time it’s very difficult. Or sick with AIDS. So… making people healthy is really helpful also for those African economies that are trying to build a better life for the people in their countries.”

President George W. Bush:

“I think government has a responsibility to protect the American people. It’s just part of an overall strategy to protect us. And the United States has to make up its mind - if it’s going to confront the conditions that cause radicalism and protect ourselves, or retreat and withdrawl and say, ‘well you know it costs too much money, therefor we’re not going to try to help others.’”

-Virginia Simmons

Laura Bush on AIDS, Malaria

First Lady Laura Bush talked about PEPFAR and the President’s Malaria Initiative on the Chris Wallace show on Sunday. Watch the clip here. (Note, it may take a few minutes for the full video to load.)

From the interview:

Laura Bush: But many of the policies that I’ve had the chance to visit, like the PEPFAR, the president’s emergency plan for AIDS relief, or the president’s malaria initiative in Africa, are policies that really came from him, I mean, that he felt like the United States could be effective by making sure a whole lot of people in Africa had the chance to get on antiretrovirals and literally save lives.

And my daughter Barbara was in Kenya and Rwanda this week. She went with the World Food Program. And I visited some World Food Program sites and PEPFAR sites.

And she said that when she was introduced, this made her weep. People would say your dad saved my life, because they’re very aware they’re getting antiretrovirals because of the president’s emergency plan which, of course, is funded by the American people, by the American taxpayer.

Chris Wallace: Nancy Reagan once told me that during her husband’s second term, she felt freer to go out to talk about public policy and her views on them, and you seem to be doing the same thing. Why is that?

Laura Bush: Well, I don’t know that it’s — I mean, I think I felt perfectly free during the first term as well to talk about whatever I was interested in. But I also think it took me a while to realize what a platform I had.

You can read the full transcript here.