On World Malaria Day 2012, Mandy Moore shares a first-hand account with AOL of her visits to Cameroon, Central African Republic and Sudan, where she met families affected by malaria.
Moore, a global health ambassador working to prevent malaria, describes one woman in Cameroon for whom a simple insecticide-treated net meant fending off malaria-carrying mosquitos -- a matter of life and death.
"I could tell very shortly after meeting her loss had not escaped her life. She had lost many family members and friends to malaria," said the singer and acress, who was there as part of an initiative to deliver 8.6 million mosquito nets country-wide with Population Services International, a global health organization tackling malaria.
The World Health Organization estimates that more than half a million children under the age of 5 died in 2010 alone because of malaria.
An insecticide-treated bed net helps protect two people from malaria-carrying mosquitos.
This past August, Moore wrote a HuffPost blog about her trip to Cameroon as it launched its first-ever country-wide distribution of nets. She described the joint effort among the UN, PSI, the Global Fund and others in providing malaria-prevention tools.
Mandy Moore urges viewers to take action and visit PSI to help provide a life-saving net for a family in need.