Malaria No More

Beat the Mozzy

Aug 9th, 2011 9:00 AM UTC
By Peter Taylor

Beat The Mozzy, is a new campaign launched by Malaria No More UK in the run up to World Mosquito Day on 20 August. It introduces ‘Ziii’ the malicious mozzy, on her tireless quest to spread malaria far and wide. Happily, she is frequently foiled by barriers to her bloodsucking, including mosquito nets and mosquito spray.

Beat The Mozzy aims to inspire widespread interest and action in fighting malaria, a preventable disease that tragically claims 781,000 lives every year with over 90% of all deaths in Africa. Malaria No More UK champions efforts for people across the UK to get involved and help save lives and last year raised funds and awareness that helped to protect over two million people from malaria in Africa.

Beat The Mozzy is made up of four 30 second cartoons produced by the Cartoon Network UK. You can view them on Malaria No More UK’s facebook page and they go live one by one on 9, 11, 16 and 18 August. Each cartoon stars Ziii, fixated on spreading malaria and carries a simple and hard-hitting message on such as the fact that half of the world’s population is at risk from the disease; malaria is preventable and treatable.

More than 500 million people have been reached with antimalarial bednets in the past 2 years alone – Saving 200,000 lives per year—that’s nearly 550 fewer deaths every single day.

The fight to make malaria no more began in earnest on 20 August in 1897 when British doctor Ronald Ross first made the link that female mosquitoes transmit malaria between humans. Dr Ross declared this day as ‘World Mosquito Day’. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his groundbreaking work, which laid the foundations for scientists across the world to beat and treat malaria, one of the world’s oldest preventable diseases.

You can view a short film on the history and significance of World Mosquito Day on Malaria No More’s website.

Malaria No More UK is part of a global movement to reach near zero deaths from malaria by 2015.

World Malaria Day

Apr 25th, 2011 10:55 AM UTC
By Nadeem Javaid

Imagine starting off feeling flushed. Then there is the fever which slowly gets worse. You lose your appetite. You feel weak, so weak you can’t even move.

Then imagine falling unconscious, and waking up in a hospital surrounded by other sick people and you don’t know what’s happened. You’re miles from home.

The hospital is three hours’ drive from where you live; the only transport is a bicycle. You won’t be able to see your family for the next two weeks.

Imagine all of this is because one mosquito bit you while you were sleeping. It’s something that could have been avoided but your family couldn’t afford a bed net.

This is the reality for millions in the world today, who face malaria across Sub-Saharan Africa and many other parts of the world. What makes this hard to read is that malaria is a disease that is preventable with the right tools and good health education.

We have real Living Proof that we can end malaria. Simple, effective measures such as mosquito nets, malaria tests and effective medicines, all underpinned by education have made great steps in eliminating malaria.  Let me throw you some great stats:

• In 2010 malaria prevention efforts saved 485 children’s lives every day.
• 11 African countries have successfully cut malaria cases by over 50% in the last decade.
• Global malaria deaths dropped by almost 10% between 2008 and 2009 alone.
• Between 2008 and 2010 almost 300 million insecticide treated nets were delivered to sub-Saharan Africa – enough to cover over 75% of people at risk of malaria.
• A number of countries are approaching elimination including: Madagascar, Namibia, Sao Tome, Swaziland and Zanzibar.

Yet there is still more work to be done. Sadly a child still dies every 45 seconds because of malaria.  We need to build on the successes and keep the momentum going ensuring increased funding to improve access to malaria prevention and treatment.  By doing so we can save 3 million lives in Africa by 2015.

April 25^th marks World Malaria Day, a day of recognition about the scale of malaria and our historic opportunity to end deaths from this preventable disease.  You can do your bit too – our friends at Malaria No More have a simple mission to eliminate malaria. To find out what you can do this World Malaria Day to make Malaria No More please visit their website www.malarianomore.org.uk

The Motherland Tour

Sep 17th, 2010 4:05 PM UTC
By Michael Healy

When it comes to African musicians, Yvonne Chaka Chaka is about as big as they get. Born in Soweto and growing up during apartheid, Yvonne shot to stardom as a singer in her native South Africa in the late 80s and has since risen to become a superstar across sub-Saharan Africa, known as the Princess of Africa and hailed by Nelson Mandela as a “national icon”. I was very proud, therefore, to be able to attend the world premiere in London of her film The Motherland Tour – A Journey of African Women, organised by our friends at Malaria No More UK. The film, like much of Yvonne’s work, was inspired by her desire to influence and educate people on the dangers of preventable and treatable diseases.

Yvonne, who has worked closely with ONE in the past, met a number of strong and inspirational women who are engaged in educating themselves and others in the prevention and treatment of diseases like malaria and HIV, or training to be nurses and midwives so that maternal mortality need not be such a regular tragedy on the continent (In the United States a woman’s chance of dying in childbirth is 1 in 4,800, in sub-Saharan Africa it’s a shocking 1 in 22).

One of the film’s most touching stories is of Hupa, a mother in Zambia whose 3 year old son died of malaria. “In the past,” she explains, “we relied on traditional methods” whilst holding up some straw and cow dung. “At the time I was not even willing to accept my child was sick. I did not know.” She is devastated, knowing now that simple precautions, better education and access to treatment could have saved her child.

Hupa is now a member of a project funded by the Global Fund where, after working in the fields each day, she helps educates others about the causes and means of preventing malaria. Armed with insecticidal mosquito nets and the knowledge she has been given by the Global Fund, she is a vital source of information and resources for her community.

The film is full of stories of women like Hupa, too many to mention here.

The showing was attended by a number of dignitaries from sub-Saharan African countries, and they were implored by Yvonne to listen to the messages in the film, and write to their governments and leaders to ask them to pressurise those  charged with replenishing the Global Fund to do what was necessary to help continue the fight against HIV, malaria and TB around the world.

I spoke with Diarmaid McDonald, Campaign Coordinator for STOP AIDS who had a message for governments:

“We work a lot with Malaria No More and we believe we are close to seeing the end of paediatric HIV and seeing the end of malaria as a global killer. That is why we are pushing hard for a $20 billion replenishment of the Global Fund in October.”

If Western governments are serious about tackling disease in Africa and tapping into the potential of Africa’s women and girls then a full replenishment of the Global Fund would be a very good place to start.

Photo courtesy of Malaria No More

Nets needed

Jun 16th, 2010 11:00 AM UTC
By David Cole

In the run up to the Wimbledon tennis championship, which begins next week, tennis star Andy Murray has teamed up with our friends at Malaria No More UK to raise awareness of this preventable and treatable disease that still claims 850,000 lives each year.

Watch the video:

Over 90% of malarial deaths occur in Africa where the most vulnerable people, typically pregnant women and children, are affected first and worst. The tragedy is that these deaths are needless as malaria is a preventable disease. Bed nets to protect against malaria cost $10 and treatment to cure malaria costs only $2 per dose.

Launching the video Andy Murray said:

“I hope people enjoy the ad and take away the serious message behind it. Malaria is a preventable disease yet it still claims the lives of 2,000 people a day in Africa. A disease of that scale here in the UK would be unthinkable and surely the same should apply for Africa. A life saving mosquito net costs less than a pack of tennis balls so please join me, donate and support Malaria No More UK.”

Breaking News: $3 Billion in New Malaria Funding!!

Sep 25th, 2008 12:53 PM UTC
By ONE Partners

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