Jessica Uno is winner of the World Briefing: Telling the Malaria Contest co-sponsored by Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation and Malaria No More. Her winning essay earned her a trip to cover the MIM Pan-African Malaria Conference in Kenya and report back on the latest in the global effort to end malaria.

Ambassador Mark Green

Before I left for Nairobi, Emily from MNM set up a phone interview for me with Mark Green, executive director of Malaria No More’s Policy Center. Mr. Green recently finished serving as U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania and helped craft a number of policies and programs surrounding American foreign aid in women’s rights and health, AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. Ambassador Green’s impressive accomplishments and the fact that he was my first interview for this trip made me quite nervous about talking to him, but I was pleasantly surprised by his open and encouraging personality.

Ambassador Green has demonstrated his prowess in navigating policy related to Africa. His firsthand experiences living and working in Africa, personally suffering malaria, observing the child lives lost, families damaged, and economic productivity impaired by malaria have made him a skilled leader and policymaker. Ambassador Green described to me that until recently, malaria seemed an inevitable fact of life in Africa. However, we now know that malaria is highly treatable and preventable.

One point that stood out in our interview was the need to finish the job with malaria eradication. It is clear that we have the prevention and treatment tools that, when combined, are extremely effective in reducing malaria deaths. However, applying these tools to achieve our goal requires extended attention from the public, policymakers and leaders. According to Ambassador Green, some people would look at the statistic stating that malaria rates are less than 1% in Zanzibar and think “Oh, malaria’s not a problem anymore!” It is when this attitude takes hold however that malaria comes roaring back.

For those who aren’t familiar with malaria, it is a parasite that is transmitted by mosquitoes to humans. Once in a human, some of the parasites hide dormant in the body while others go out attacking, and so even if you clear a patient of the attacking parasites, the dormant ones are still there, capable of popping out unexpectedly and wreaking further havoc. Same in mosquitoes, not all of the parasites leave the mosquito when it bites a human. Thus, there are many ways the parasite persist in either human or mosquito hosts.

As Ambassador Green put it, “mosquitoes don’t respect national borders.” Until we completely stamp out the Plasmodium parasite, it will always be capable of returning with a vengeance, either through mosquitoes or humans. It’s an all or nothing battle. It requires commitment, but our progress so far has been extremely promising, and Ambassador Green believes that our efforts will be worthwhile during our lifetime. And the progress we make in fighting malaria and the surge of humanitarian energy such a victory would generate can be applied to thousands of causes elsewhere.

Jessica’s trip to Kenya was supported by Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation and Malaria No More.

Tags: Finish the Job, Mark Green

Tags: Finish the Job, Mark Green
Categories:Jessica Uno: World Briefing Report, On-The-Ground, Partners