World Malaria Day

As some of you may know, today is World Malaria Day. I was trying to decide how exactly to mark the occasion through my blog. There's a lot of pressure when your job is all about malaria... So much could be said, but where to start?

I considered writing a bit about malaria in general. Talking about how it's both preventable and treatable, yet we still haven't beat it. About how pregnant women and children under five are the most at risk. About how historically we keep developing new treatments, and the parasite keeps evolving and developing resistance. But then I decided that none of this can be summed up in a blog post—and others have already said it so much better. In fact, if you are interested, I highly recommend Sonia Shah's The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years. http://soniashah.com/books/the-fever/ Both interesting and informative.

In any case, after thinking all day I decided not to write anything. I'd rather not have anything terribly serious, since diseases are depressing already. So instead I decided to point you in the direction of a lovely little short by Disney about malaria. It was made back in the '40s (you'll notice when they show a map that we used to have malaria in the States as well). It may not make you super sad thinking about dying children, but it will at least teach you more about malaria--and understanding how malaria is transmitted and can be prevented is a big part of the fight.

So Happy World Malaria Day and enjoy the video!

The Winged Scourge (Disney '43)

a quick video about the history of malaria

For your personal enjoyment and enlightenment:

(Brought to you by Blog About Malaria Month)

Blog About Malaria Month!

It is officially April which means it is officially Blog About Malaria Month (or BAMM). What does this mean, you ask? World Malaria Day is April 25th, and for the occasion, Peace Corps Volunteers all over Africa will be building awareness for the fight against malaria by writing, blogging, and facebook statusing about malaria all month.

So a couple of things:

1. I will try to write more than usual this month about malaria. So get excited about that. We'll see how exactly it plays out. I'll do my best to go beyond statistics about malaria-related mortality, but no promises.

2. You should join the fun! Malaria is often forgotten, perhaps because it's been around forever and is neither new nor necessarily sexy. But it won't be eradicated unless people continue fighting it--and in a coordinated way. So we (me, Peace Corps's Malaria Team, Africans everywhere I assume) would love if you helped build awareness! We even have a logo (above) that you can use to keep you in sync with the BAMMers everywhere. It was created by a PCV and won a competition so you know it's cool.

Get ready for a serious focus on malaria this month!