By: Alanna Shaikh
More good news from me this week. New research shows that more kids in Africa are sleeping under bednets to protect them from mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue. Here’s the big deal: in 1999, only 1.5% of children at risk slept under a net. By 2008 26.6% of children slept under a net. In Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Sao Tome, more than 80% of all children slept under a net. Considering that malaria caused 900,000 deaths in 2006, these kinds of advances really matter.
To make things even more interesting, the countries who did the best job of distributing bed nets and getting people to use them were also the countries that received the most aid for their malaria programs. That’s not exactly 100% proof that health aid works, but it comes awfully close.
Malaria has a lot in common with the NTDs. After all, it’s a tropical disease, too. It’s just not neglected. It shares territory, climate, and even modes of transmission with various NTDs. And, like malaria, we know how to prevent and cure NTDs. What worked for malaria – effective, targeted aid in quantities big enough to have an impact – will work for neglected tropical diseases, too. This research is a reminder and an inspiration. We really can defeat these diseases, bit by bit.
