Chefs run the New York City marathon [Time Out New York]
Olivier Muller, Executive Chef at db Bistro, dishes on his diet while training for the marathon. He’s running for Malaria No More this weekend.

Cornerstone Students Win Chance to Pie their Principle and Fight Malaria [WTOP-FM]
Corner Schools hosted a Stayin’ Alive Dance to benefit the fight against malaria and the class that raised the most money won the chance to pie their principle in the face. Wendy from the MNM Policy Center visited the school to speak to the children about malaria.

Road Runners: Social Set Preps for the Marathon [WWD.com]
This Sunday, members of the “chic set”, including Olivier Muller, will compete in the ING NYC Marathon. Olivier is running for the Malaria No More team.

Gary Ginsberg and John Damonti Join Malaria No More Board of Directors [Reuters]
We welcomed two new members to our Board of Directors this week as Gary Ginsberg, EVP of Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs at News Corporation, and John Damonti, President of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, joined to support our mission.

Must-Reads

Bill Gates urges more spending on global health [Associated Press]
Bill and Melinda Gates made a personal appeal to Washington officials Tuesday night, asking them to continue funding global health initiatives despite the recession and to commit to nearly halve the number of child deaths worldwide by 2025. The appeal was made through the new ‘Living Proof Project’ that shares personal stories from people who have benefited from U.S. spending on global health.

Nigeria: Help for Fighting Malaria [New York Times]
In its largest single malaria undertaking, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced last week that Nigeria would receive grants worth $285 million over two years to distribute 30 million antimalarial bed nets.

5 Simple Solutions to Global Problems [ABC News]
IV developed a plan for targeting mosquitoes via the photonic fence. Once mosquitoes are identified by their wingbeat frequency, a sensor locks on them, targets them and shoots them out of the sky with lasers.

As Malaria No More’s team of 25 runners prepares for Sunday’s New York City marathon, Alistair Fernie reflects on his fundraising efforts in last year’s race:

A lot of people thought I was insane to run the New York City marathon in 2008 two and a half weeks after my wife had given birth to twins. But as an experienced charity fund-raiser, I knew that nothing would help more with getting sponsorship for Malaria No More (except perhaps running in a giant mosquito costume). Most people think marathon runners are mad. Most people think people who have young twins deserve enormous sympathy. And charity sponsorship is all about milking that “rather you than me” feeling to raise funds for a good cause – “if this guy’s prepared to go through such agony, I should give some cash!”

I decided to raise money for Malaria No More because I had come across them in my work at the UK Mission to the United Nations in New York, and been impressed by the clarity of their mission. I was also about to move to Nairobi as head of the UK government’s Department for International Development office there, running the British aid programmes in Kenya and Somalia…

Read more about Alistair’s experience in Africa and his reflections on running the marathon last year for Malaria No More on the Malaria No More UK website.

The 2009 team is getting ready to run the marathon on Sunday! Go team!

We’ve recently been nominated for a ThinkSocial Award for our efforts around the Twitter Challenge with Ashton (@aplusk) leading up to World Malaria Day – remember that?!

Public voting opened yesterday and we’re quickly climbing the ranks to victory – and we need your help to ensure we get there! To show your support, visit our page on ThinkSocial and cast your vote. You can sign in through your email, Twitter handle, Facebook and MySpace accounts.

Share the buzz!

Nancy Fullman is running the ING NYC Marathon for Malaria No More this Sunday. To raise money for MNM, she hosted a “Malaria Night” event, which she offered to blog about on Buzzwords:

When I moved to Seattle just over a year ago to work at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), I knew very little about malaria. I had a lot to learn given I was immediately labeled the “malaria go-to” research fellow at IHME. As I started working on projects tracking mosquito net coverage and distribution, I became increasingly interested in the “how” and “who” behind net distributions – that is, who were the organizations orchestrating the massive mosquito net campaigns and by what means were they achieving their aims. When Malaria No More advertised running spots in the NYC marathon, I jumped at the opportunity; after all, you don’t frequently get to combine two great passions – running and global health – for an incredible cause!

As a supplement to my fundraising goals, I hosted a “Malaria Night” at a local bar in Seattle (The Alibi Room). Amidst donate-n-drink specials, the highlight of the night was a date auction in which brave volunteers were auctioned off with pre-set dates donated by local businesses and individuals. From kayaking packages to a flight around Puget Sound, the date auction helped to bring in over $1,400 for Malaria No More.

Participants already are demanding that “Malaria Night” become an annual event. I guess I might have to run another marathon to beat malaria next year…

Join MNM staff on the marathon sidelines on Sunday and show your support for the Malaria No More team!

Tonight, some of the MNM staff will attend a presentation by Bill and Melinda Gates, “LIVING PROOF: Why we are Impatient Optimist.” The presentation is in concert with the official rollout of the Gates Foundation’s new Living Proof Project that highlights success stories and progress in global health. See their progress on malaria here.

Virtually attend the event by watching the Webcast on our blog or follow MNM staff on Twitter to watch what they have to say about the event.

ThinkSocial Awards: World Malaria Day “Twitter Challenge for Malaria No More” [Think Social]
We’ve been recognized for our collaborative social media work with Ashton Kutcher and Katalyst around World Malaria Day 2009. We look forward to hearing the final results on November 5^th.

Legends, Industry Leaders Praise Patron Highcroft’s Championship Success [PaddockTalk]
Scott Case was quoted in this online article saying: “Members of the Patrón Highcroft team were champions before they ever stepped on the track through their commitment to the Miles To End Malaria program.”

Must-Reads

A taste for bold ideas — chewing gum to detect malaria? [Seattle Times]
As part of its Grand Challenges Exploration program, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation granted $100,000 to researchers hoping to use chewing gum and chocolate to fight malaria.

Players kick off World Cup anti-malaria fight [Reuters]
Footballers are teaming up with governments, companies and international health campaigners to push the “United Against Malaria” campaign, which will start next month and run until the end of the World Cup.

Zimbabwe: Aid groups worry about govt disarray [Associated Press]
Aid workers report the disarray of the government of Zimbabwe is putting its most vulnerable citizens at risk as hunger and disease threatens to sweep the country. Luckily, the U.N.’s Roll Back Malaria Partnership has been able to work with the new government to ensure insecticide was distributed before the rainy season.

This summer, John Logsdon reinforced his credentials as Malaria No More’s foremost expert on soccer when he traveled to San Diego to take part in the inaugural Kick 4 Hope youth soccer tournament.

I had the honor and privilege of attending the first Kick 4 Hope tournament in sunny San Diego, and witness another great example of how the soccer community is rallying behind the fight against malaria in the lead up to the first World Cup on African soil!

The Kick 4 Hope tournament, established by self-professed soccer mom Kristen Chandler, was inspired by her son’s work at an orphanage in Uganda and the stories he brought back with him about the young children’s passion for the game of soccer. As a result, Kristen decided to use the global game of soccer as a bridge between kids in the U.S. and Africa, and in her words, “give [U.S.] children the chance to ‘play hard & give big’ for the children of Africa.”

Malaria No More was fortunate to be one of four non-profits selected to benefit from the first Kick for Hope tournament and gave me the opportunity to educate 1,300 youth and their parents about malaria during the spirited two day event which raised over $40,000 in support of Kick for Hope and the four charities, including just under $6,000 for Malaria No More. The Kick 4 Hope funds will be used to support the upcoming distribution of life-saving mosquito nets in the Democratic Republic of Congo (the country with the second highest malaria infection rate in the world), as a part of a game changing 1.08 million net distribution, keeping children malaria-free and ready to pursue their dreams, soccer-related or otherwise.

We were thrilled to hear that Kristen plans to make the Kick 4 Hope tournament in San Diego an annual event and eventually expand the model to other cities. For more information about Kick for Hope, visit kickforhope.org.

Yesterday, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced their latest round of the Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges Exploration grants and some of the recipients have tasty ideas for attacking malaria. According to the Seattle Times:

Andrew Fung of the UCLA aims to develop chewing gum that can detect the presence of malaria in a person’s saliva. Fung calls his diagnostic tool “MALiVA.” During chewing, particles in the gum will react with malaria proteins, which can be detected and characterized when the gum is scanned with a magnet.

Steven Maranz of Weill Cornell Medical College will test a compound contained in chocolate to find out whether providing children high levels of flavanols, found in chocolate, green tea and nuts, deprives malaria parasites of lipids needed to survive, keeping the infection at levels low enough to elicit a strong immune response and build lifelong immunity. The chocolate “medicine” will be delivered in a liquid form, similar to hot chocolate, because the cocoa in most chocolate bars has been altered with most helpful elements removed.

These ideas are among dozens of unconventional approaches to global health problems that won backing yesterday. Read about the other winning ideas here.

Last week in our nation’s capital, students of Cornerstone Schools in Washington, D.C. celebrated Malaria Awareness Week with a full schedule of activities and lesson plans focused on malaria and the impact we’re having in the fight to end malaria-related deaths. Students received a visit from the our Policy Center’s own Wendy T. and had the opportunity to see what it would feel like to be under a real mosquito net.

The lessons were complemented by a classroom fundraising competition which raised more than $300 to provide life-saving mosquito nets in Africa! In addition, Mrs. Coley’s third grade class was rewarded with a special treat for raising the most money during the week – the opportunity to throw a pie in the face of Cornerstone’s Principal Lange. What a sweet treat for this great group of students who are already making a global impact and helping us to save lives!

Watch Principal Lange get pied in the face by Mrs. Coley’s class!

Thanks to a marked increase in funding, African countries are absorbing billions of dollars for malaria control over the next few years to reach the 2010 universal coverage goal. It’s vital that these countries be equipped with the expertise and skills to build aggressive and effective action plans. To support countries in this effort, we’re working with MACEPA to conduct regional training workshops with National Malaria Control Programs from 32 different African countries. Led by the Alliance for Malaria Prevention (AMP), the workshops provide an opportunity for countries to share best practices, get advice from African and international experts and create strategies for implementing, monitoring and evaluating mass bed-net distribution campaigns.

Last month, we attended the AMP Logistics Training Workshop in Nairobi, Kenya. We collected the materials presented there to aide logisticians, those working with/or as principal recipients, country partners, and external logistics resource persons implementing mosquito net distributions, which currently live on our Website for your convenience.

AMP is sponsored by ExxonMobile, MACEPA, Malaria No More and Roll Back Malaria Partnership.