[Malaria] kills nearly one million people each year, and overwhelms public health systems. It is time to redouble our efforts to rid the world of a disease that does not have to take lives.
- US President Barack Obama’s statement on World Malaria Day, April 24 2009
As any Canadian who’s spent as little as a weekend at the cottage or on a camping trip knows, mosquitoes can be a real pest. In our experience, though, they don’t qualify as much more than an itchy annoyance. Not so for the 50% of Earth’s population for whom the pesky little insects represent a lethal health risk. Their weapon? Malaria, a disease which infected 247 million people in 2006, mostly because of their lack of access to the knowledge and materials required to prevent it. More than one million people die from malaria every year, and the disease has a way of targeting those who are especially vulnerable: it’s said that a child dies of malaria every thirty seconds.
In addition to fracturing individual families and communities, the economic impact of malaria is such that it prevents entire nations from realizing their development potential. Governments of the worst-hit countries spend as much as 40% of their public health budgets on malaria treatment, while bedridden workers are forced to sit by and observe their nation’s crumbling economic prospects.
Check out the World Health Organization’s Malaria info page for more facts and figures on this devastating disease.