World Malaria Day

Wednesday, April 25, is World Malaria Day. A number of Partners In Health's projects are located in malaria-endemic regions of the world, and our clinicians frequently treat patients suffering from this disease.

Though preventable and easily treated, malaria killed 655,000 people in 2010. Ninety-one percent of malaria-related deaths occur in Africa, the majority of those affected are children under 5 years of age.

The photo gallery below shows some of these sites and our work to treat and prevent the disease, including the use of bednets — a low-cost and effective way of sheltering families from the mosquitoes that carry the disease. 

For example, each year, Malawi’s people endure millions of cases of malaria and mourn the death of thousands — most of whom are women and young children. To help fight malaria in Neno District, Partners In Health has teamed up with TAMTAM and Project 7 to provide long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets to pregnant women, new mothers, and their newborn children.

These nets offer important advantages over nets traditionally available in Malawi, as they last up to five years and do not require recipients to treat them again with insecticides. Provided at the district’s prenatal clinics, ART centers and maternity wards, the nets encourage women to seek primary healthcare services and complement our existing work with the Ministry of Health to distribute nets at the community level.

To date, over 400 women and newborns have benefited from the program. 

Listen to Joia Mukherjee, PIH’s medical director, discuss the need to fight malaria in an NPR interview from 2011.
Learn more about malaria from the USAID and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
Visit Malaria No More.