Spread the Net (No, Not the Internet)

Some of you may have heard of this iniative as I am writing about this a while after the ball has gotten rolling.

Spreadthenet.org is dedicated to providing mosquito nets to children in sub saharan Africa who are at risk of getting malaria. Why is malaria such a problem? Here are some stats from the CDC website:

• Forty-one percent of the world's population live in areas where malaria is transmitted (e.g., parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, Hispaniola, and Oceania).
• Each year 350–500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
• In areas of Africa with high malaria transmission, an estimated 990,000 people died of malaria in 1995 – over 2700 deaths per day, or 2 deaths per minute.
• In 2002, malaria was the fourth cause of death in children in developing countries, after perinatal conditions (conditions occurring around the time of birth), lower respiratory infections (pneumonias), and diarrheal diseases. Malaria caused 10.7% of all children's deaths in developing countries.
• In Malawi in 2001, malaria accounted for 22% of all hospital admissions, 26% of all outpatient visits, and 28% of all hospital deaths. Not all people go to hospitals when sick or having a baby, and many die at home. Thus the true numbers of death and disease caused by malaria are likely much higher.

Though there are several ways in which malaria can be combatted, many of them have proved inneffective in poorer countries. I could go on talking about how malaria been killing off humans for thousands of years, or many other aspects of the disease, but I'm not going to.

The tragedy is that prevention is fairly cheap (for us) and nets reduce malaria transmission and deaths by a good proportion (according to Spread the net, the transmission rate drops by 50% and the under-5 mortality rate drops 25%).

A small $10 donation will buy one (treated) net that 2 or 3 children can sleep under (most of the malaria transmitting mosquitoes only come out at night to feed). If you're looking for somewhere to donate money, this is definitely a worthy cause. With AIDS and malaria ravaging Africa, it's hard for the people who live there to get their feet on the ground economically. This is definitely something that will help.

For more information on malaria (including a nice long list of external links), check out wikipedia.

Here's a quick video of everyone's favourite Canadian celebrity:



And on a closing note: big props to Belinda Stronach who has shown a great deal of involvement with Spread the Net. It's nice to see our politians doing some good in the world.