Good Works: Against Malaria

 

The name of the Against Malaria Foundation describes a goal rather than a moral position. Few, if any, people are FOR malaria,* a mosquito-borne illness that annually kills three hundred thousand children and sends 500 times that many kids and adults to the hospital. The name conceals the simplicity and effectiveness of the organization’s antimalarial strategy: to buy insecticide-treated malaria nets and distribute them in countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria is endemic and disruptive. There are other means of preventing malaria, including insecticide spraying, antimalarial drugs, and a new (if not yet fully reliable) vaccine. Most are still difficult to implement in poorer and more rural parts of Africa and South America, which makes nets much more immediately effective. Against Malaria’s strategy also allows it to share with donors how much their contribution is buying and where their nets are going, which can provide them with a welcome sense of connection to their good works.

 

*Supporters of malaria tend to be Nazis, rather than people.