Crucial Malaria Support Helps People in Crisis

Every day, people in impoverished countries suffer and die from malaria – a completely preventable, treatable disease. Children and families struggling in the aftermath of flood disasters are especially vulnerable, because wet, crowded conditions create a fertile breeding ground for the mosquito-borne illness.On World Malaria Day and every day, AmeriCares supports malaria treatment and prevention efforts with shipments of crucial supplies to help people at risk from this all too common disease.According to Dr. Frank Bia, AmeriCares medical director,  “There are many forces today that work against the elimination of malaria as a widespread human disease – they include poverty, inadequate protective housing, lack of water resource management and failure to prevent human exposure to mosquito transmission.  Malaria control is not simply about the availability of antimalarial drugs, since the parasite may quickly become resistant.  It is about the total ecological environment in which people are forced to live with continued exposure to malaria infections.”Southeast AsiaThroughout the fall of 2011, the worst flooding in half a century left millions of people in Southeast Asia displaced and struggling to survive. When floodwaters receded, the risk for malaria and other water borne diseases grew – creating a grave threat for patients with immune systems already weakened by illness. Our emergency grant helped a partner hospital in Cambodia distribute relief items, including mosquito nets to protect 172 vulnerable families from malaria.PakistanIn September, 2011, massive flooding created a humanitarian crisis for more than three million people in southern Pakistan. AmeriCares coordinated a targeted response to help an estimated 50,000 flood victims with distributions of mosquito nets and other relief supplies to people in hard-hit villages. In addition, AmeriCares supplied 30 mobile medical clinics caring for thousands of displaced survivors with medicines to treat malaria, diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections.Malaria Facts

• Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected Anopheline mosquitoes.
• In 2010, the World Health Organization estimated there were at least 216 million malaria cases and 655,000 malaria deaths, with most deaths occurring in children from developing countries.
• 3.3 billion people – almost half the world’s population — are at risk for contracting some form of malaria infection.
• Increased malaria prevention and control measures are reducing the malaria burden in many places

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