Purpose-driven drive against malaria
Hello! This is Charlotte, the News and Views editor here at Nature Medicine, and it’s about time I posted. I’ve been scurrying around getting out my section, which involves mainly commentaries written by scientists. Part of my job as editor is trying to get scientists to write in a lively way—and to push them to have opinions. So I hope I manage to achieve that myself here in this blog! If not, you can excoriate me in the comments section.
While much of the rest of our team is based in New York City, I’m in Washington DC—land of the wonk. So that means I get to attend all sorts of panels, science policy events and schmooze fests of dubious value. Some of them are worthwhile.
In fact, this last Thursday I attended the “White House Summit on Malaria” —along with just about every luminary in the public health world, Condoleeza Rice, singing children and a superstar pastor.
The summit, hosted by President and Mrs. Bush, was designed to raise awareness of the disease; the administration’s campaign against malaria has been garnering some praises lately for shaking down red tape and increasing transparency.
For a while I was wondering if anything was really going to happen at this event. But among numerous platitudes—“We have a chance to make history” —several new endeavors were announced and achievements highlighted. For instance, as part of a push for greater business involvement, the National Basketball Association and other groups have raised $1.7 million dollars since May for mosquito bed nets, spurred by a column in Sports Illustrated.
And while we were all waiting for the president to speak, silenced by the delay and the intimidating stare of the secret service guys lining the corridors, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Malaria, spontaneously broke into song onstage, "The power of Africa". (Chaka Chaka, being a pop star, could probably sense the need for the security guys and the rest of us to be amused). The crowd started to bounce in their seats. One silver-haired lady, wearing a red suit in the way that only the well-off can do, got up and danced—and so did Eyitayo Lambo, Nigeria’s minister of health (on stage). He has reason—last week his country got a loan of more than $180 million from the World Bank to fight malaria.
Perhaps most thought-provoking was the call for greater involvement of religious groups.
Rick Warren, a star on the sermon circuit, and author of the Christian bestseller, “A purpose-driven life” explained his approach. He said religious groups, of whatever faith, have access to the community, credibility and an unprecedented volunteer pool. His network of churches is partnering with the government of Rwanda and other groups to train villagers to counteract malaria. Already more than 1000 church leaders in the country have signed up, he said.
Warren’s approach has the blessing of Richard Feachem, head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. “There is a church in every village,” he said.
Religious groups have played a big role in the public health effort against AIDS—not without controversy, because of issues about condoms and sexuality. But with malaria, hopefully, there will be more consensus. This seems like a good idea to me—what do you think?