I contracted malaria while working in the field. That was the impetus for me to pursue a doctorate in community health. As a young academic, I investigated the patterns of malaria's spread and the potential measures we could employ to control it.
The Center for Disease Control started out as the malaria war control board based in Atlanta. Partly because the head of Coke had some people out to his plantation, and they got infected with malaria, and partly 'cause all the military recruits were coming down and having a higher fatality rate from malaria while training than in the field.
The Center for Disease Control started out as the malaria war control board based in Atlanta. Partly because the head of Coke had some people out to his plantation and they got infected with malaria, and partly cause all the military recruits were coming down and having a higher fatality rate from malaria while training than in the field.
The monetary impacts of malaria from the household to the global level are significant. Malaria tends to strike during harvest season, rendering families too sick and too weak to perform the work necessary to earn a living. Malaria-stricken families spend an average of over a quarter of their income on malaria treatment.
Millions of women in malaria-endemic areas in Africa become pregnant every year. Malaria is a threat to these women and their babies, with up to 200,000 newborn deaths each year as a result of malaria.
I speak often about my personal experiences with malaria in the field as a young public health officer because it had such a profound impact on my life and my work.
New malaria cases fell by 21 percent between 2010 and 2015 worldwide, and malaria death rates fell by 29 percent in the same period. Yet, though malaria is preventable and treatable, it is still claiming too many lives around the world.
The tool that's most associated with the recent progress against malaria is the long-lasting bed net. Bed nets are a fantastic innovation. But we can do even better. We can invent new ways to control the mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.
Between 2000 and 2010, malaria mortality rates fell by 26 percent around the world. According to the latest World Health Organization estimates, there were about 219 million cases of malaria in 2010 and an estimated 660,000 deaths.
Soon after joining the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia, I was called upon as part of team to respond to a malaria outbreak. My team was dispatched to a village in southwestern Ethiopia, where I not only observed the malaria epidemic's shocking effects on adults and children but also experienced it first-hand.
My experience of malaria was just taking anti-malarials, which give you strange dreams, because I don't want to get malaria.
We need a malaria epidemic in the blogging community! Either that or we need people who have seen the malaria epidemic to start blogging.
Defeating malaria is absolutely critical to ending poverty, improving the health of millions, and enabling future generations to reach their full potential.
The malaria parasite has been killing children and sapping the strength of whole populations for tens of thousands of years. It is impossible to calculate the harm malaria has done to the world.
When I played for Ghana, I learned how to fight malaria. Simple vaccines are not enough. You also have to dry out infected areas where the carriers proliferate. I think that racism and malaria have a lot in common.
Pneumonia is a disease that often flies under the radar of not just the public but even the global health community. It kills more children under 5 years old every year than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.
I really do think cancer will largely be a solved problem. I think most of the infectious diseases like malaria - our foundation is very involved - once we're finishing polio eradication, then starting up this malaria eradication, and getting that done as fast as we can.