Bill Gates, Now we can chart a course to end the harm of malaria
BillGatesWindows.com Foundation News Room. Bill Gates’ speech (October 18) at the foundation’s second annual Malaria Forum about the progress in the war against the dreaded parasitic disease.
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Melinda told you about some of the people we met in Tanzania recently. I was impressed by a man named Prosper Chaki, who runs a larviciding project in Dar es Salaam. He spends his days wading into the standing water where anopheles mosquitoes breed, so he can poison them. It’s not so surprising that he’s gotten malaria 20 times.“Mosquitoes are smart,” Mr. Chaki said. Then he told us, “We have to be smarter.”
I believe we will be smarter. One reason is that you have come from all over the world to this forum—to challenge each other, to disagree with each other, and to learn from each other. When you leave tomorrow, our team at the foundation will move forward with the benefit of the most rigorous thinking in the world. We are grateful to you for that, and I hope each of you will take inspiration back with you as you continue your personal fight against malaria.
The other reason I believe we will be smarter is that human beings have a spectacular ability to innovate. Innovation is one of the most powerful forces in the world. It can make the impossible, possible.
Melinda talked about the innovations that have changed the course of malaria and saved a million lives in the past 10 years.
But innovations are only as good as our commitment to delivering them. We have to get better at using the innovative tools we have.
Intermittent preventive treatment with drugs during pregnancy and infancy are two proven methods of protecting those most at risk from malaria, but they’re not saving as many lives as they should be. For example, most countries in sub-Saharan Africa provide IPTp in less than 20 percent of pregnancies. That is not good enough.
We have to demonstrate the same level of commitment as new tools come online. I am very optimistic that Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention will be available starting early next year, when the WHO’s approval process is complete. We must be aggressive in launching pilot studies to understand how this intervention should fit into control strategies, so we save as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible.
We also have to be thinking simultaneously about the next generation of tools. If we think big, bring more partners into the fold, and take smart risks, we will invent novel tools—powerful ways of fighting malaria that don’t exist now. This is the kind of innovation that will enable us to plan for the eventual eradication of malaria.
Eradication is an ambitious goal—and a long-term goal. It is also a goal to which we remain 100 percent committed.
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