'Malaria No More' Produces Holiday Cards to Fight Greatest Killer of Young Children in Africa

On Monday, the activist organization Malaria No More announced that it has produced its first-ever series of holiday cards, the purchase of which will buy insecticide-treated bed nets to protect families from Africa's number-one very young child killer, malaria.

The cards are available as an e-card for $10 (which covers the cost of providing a bed net to a family in Africa) or in physical form for $13.20 (which covers the bed net plus card and delivery costs). A single bed net, which is suspended around beds to provide a protective barrier against the mosquitoes that carry malaria at night, when the vast majority of infections occur, sleeps 2-3 people and protects them for up to five years.

Malaria No More says that every 30 seconds a child in Africa dies from malaria. More than a million people are killed by the disease every year, and 350 million to 500 million people are infected worldwide. Malaria is considered to be the number one global killer of human beings.

Yet, says the organization, malaria is a 100% preventable and treatable disease.

According to the World Health Organization, malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, which multiplies in the liver and then infects red blood cells. Within 10 to 15 days after a person is bitten by a carrier mosquito, fevers, headaches, and throwing up begin to manifest as symptoms. If it is not treated, malaria very soon becomes life-threatening because it disrupts the blood supply to vital organs.

However, critics of the approved techniques such as the spreading of bed nets for preventing the spread of malaria are angered that the known most-effective way of preventing its onset is the killing of mosquitoes with DDT. They charge that DDT is significantly more effective and economical than bed nets or pharmaceuticals with side effects, and mosquitoes never showed the ability to mutate resistance to the powerful chemical compound.

DDT was the most potent insecticide ever invented. However, it was believed by the early 1960s by many prominent researchers such as Rachel Carson that DDT was poisoning fish, polluting waters, and softening the shells of birds that came into contact with its runoff from sprayed crops or other areas, and DDT became outlawed. But since that time, the research used to draw the negative conclusions about DDT has been revisited and most of it has been found to be faulty, causing malaria activists and others to demand that the insecticide be made legal again.

Supporters of bringing back DDT say that the chemical compound simply needs to be used in moderation and not wrecklessly as it was in the past in order to prevent any bad effects to humans or the environment.

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