Are there not more systematic ways of dealing with the whole situation? Some sort of mosquito-net mass production program? Eradicate the mosquitoes somehow? Stop having children?
It’s more accurate to think of bed nets as one fork of the malaria eradication problem. Since malaria parasites need both primary (mosquitoes) and intermediate hosts (infected humans or other vertebrates) in order to reproduce, anything that breaks transmission of the disease or kills its vectors is also going to help reduce its prevalence, and insecticide-treated netting is one of the more cost-effective ways of doing both; it’s not the only one, but it is simple and parallelizable enough to lend itself to charitable funding. Reading about previous successful eradication efforts might be helpful if you’re interested in vector control more generally.
Last I heard, the AMF and similar organizations were aiming to eliminate malaria in Africa within this decade. That sounds a little ambitious to me, but even if that goal’s not met it’s certainly not the open-ended problem you’re painting it as.
Last I heard, the AMF and similar organizations were aiming to eliminate malaria in Africa within this decade. That sounds a little ambitious to me, but even if that goal’s not met it’s certainly not the open-ended problem you’re painting it as.
If that’s true, I think they absolutely should advertise that fact strongly, as that seems to me to be one of the most persuasive reasons to donate. “You can save a child’s life!” and “We are aiming to fix this problem forever and you can help” are very different.
It’s more accurate to think of bed nets as one fork of the malaria eradication problem. Since malaria parasites need both primary (mosquitoes) and intermediate hosts (infected humans or other vertebrates) in order to reproduce, anything that breaks transmission of the disease or kills its vectors is also going to help reduce its prevalence, and insecticide-treated netting is one of the more cost-effective ways of doing both; it’s not the only one, but it is simple and parallelizable enough to lend itself to charitable funding. Reading about previous successful eradication efforts might be helpful if you’re interested in vector control more generally.
Last I heard, the AMF and similar organizations were aiming to eliminate malaria in Africa within this decade. That sounds a little ambitious to me, but even if that goal’s not met it’s certainly not the open-ended problem you’re painting it as.
If that’s true, I think they absolutely should advertise that fact strongly, as that seems to me to be one of the most persuasive reasons to donate. “You can save a child’s life!” and “We are aiming to fix this problem forever and you can help” are very different.