Malaria can be prevented and cured so let's do it!

Today is World Malaria Day 2010 - and this year, in an effort to sustain positive forward momentum and hold on to important gains achieved in the fight against Malaria, we have been busier than usual contributing to building awareness and ensuring governments - both those managing malaria prevention or treatment programs and those supporting through donations and development - remain committed on all fronts. 

One of the newer elements we produced this year was our very own TV debate (pictured below) where we transformed our main meeting room at Geneva head office into a TV set. We invited key people from the world of malaria prevention, treatment and financing to provide another platform for discussion and engaging new audiences. The final edited result is made available to all our partners and national red cross / red crescent societies for use in their own constituencies. 

In addition to this we release a new updated report containing more evidence-based data on the effectiveness of community-based action in malaria prevention; we produced a photo slideshow for web-based communications and an opinion piece for national media markets. In Brussels we distributed our report to more than 4000 parliamentarians and staged a photo exhibition. We also partnered with different media organizations including World Radio Switzerland and the Financial Times.

Many of our national red cross / red crescent national societies are also extremely active. The Canadian Red Cross for example, as part of their successful Malaria Bites campaign, launched a cool Facebook application which allows you to cover your avatar with a mosquito net -- every action helps build awareness!

Since 2002, the Red Cross/Crescent alone has protected over 18 million people with long-lasting insecticide treated nets, saving over 300,000 lives in the process. Malaria can be prevented and cured. We have evidence of what’s working, so let’s do it.

/PC