World Malaria Day

Today is the first World Malaria Day. To commemorate it, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is launching an initiative to end deaths by malaria. This is an achievable goal, just as the virtual eradication of polio and ring worm around the world has been achieved. And just like we have achieved the effective eradication of TB in the West.

Malaria is a particularly capricious disease. It's easily transmitted, it's recurrent, and it's crippling. When combined with HIV/AIDS it can be completely devastating. It's a shameful truth that at least 1 million people die from it each year, and many of them are children. But this is preventable.

As you may know, Sam and I are raising money on our trip for Spread the Net. Many of our old friends and now new friends have been very generous is dontating. The idea is simple: you give Spread the Net $10 on our behalf and they make sure that a child in Africa gets a mosquito net. If you're inspired by our trip and you'd like to give money, you can go here. We've set a goal of $50,000 and we're a quarter of the way there! But even better would be to spend a few minutes learning about malaria and educating other people about it. You can start learning about it here.

Keep well and keep looking ahead.