An Audacious Goal

This week in Seattle, an extraordinary group of people -- scientists, policymakers, and advocates - came together for three days to discuss what can be done to stop malaria. Melinda and I issued a challenge to those attending the meeting. We asked them to begin charting a course to eradicate malaria - not just to control or reduce it, but to work toward a time when no one on earth is infected with malaria, and no mosquitoes carry the disease.

Today, malaria kills more than one million people every year, most of them children in Africa. That's the equivalent of losing every student in the New York City public school system in one year.

We know that eradicating malaria is an audacious goal. But advances in science and medicine, new political commitments, and the dedication of people like you have given the world an historic opportunity to conquer malaria. It won't be easy and it won't happen quickly, but I'm optimistic that we can make this disease history.

At the forum in Seattle, Melinda and I called on the U.S. presidential candidates to commit to expand the President's Malaria Initiative, a great program started by President Bush. I hope you will join us in asking all of the candidates to make this pledge and keep the fight against malaria on the national agenda.

I am confident that together, we can produce the energy, compassion, and commitment needed to win the fight against malaria.

To view a webcast of the Seattle malaria forum, visit here. For more information about how you can help fight malaria, visit here.

This post first appeared at the ONE campaign.

Comments

[Ani]

Mr. Gates ... Thank you for the incredible work performed by you and your wife.

You're the standard bearer for those of us who try to give what we can of our time, talent, and effort.

I also love that you are used as an example of my "average" wealth if you and I were the only folks in the room.

All my best to you for your continued good works.

Ani

[jeskiley]

End malaria, clean up the water, get the community active toward saving themselves, sounds great!

[YA]

Erdicate Malaria? What about bio-diversity? Let's hope that if a new virus comes from outer space, our only hope for a cure does not reside in Malaria...

Seriously though: noble goal, good luck (keep the virus in a jar somewhere safe, just in case). But then we have to worry about over-population too... we're a little bit like the sorcerer's apprentices; it seems that for every noble human action to control our environment, a horrible unintended reaction kicks in...

[facingeast]

You and your wife are good-hearted people. I wish you success on this "audacious" endeavor.

[SunnyJohn]

Malaria is caused by a parasite protozoan, not a virus.

[JulieSA]

It's not a virus.

Allowing children to killed by a preventable disease is NOT the answer to overpopulation, and it's disgusting that you would suggest that.

[blackcat26]

I applaud "audacious" efforts such as this, but I think it raises an incredibly important related issue. Let's say malaria is eliminated, or it's impact is at least significantly decreased. An additional 1 million people each year are populating the continent of Africa. That's 1 million more people to feed, employ, provide health care for, etc. No, I'm not suggesting it's better to just let them die of a mosquito-born illness now than to suffer and die of starvation later. No. My point is this - what are these organizations doing to improve quality of life for the people who are to be saved by this effort? How is their economy being strengthened to better provide them with a means of surviving and, hopefully, thriving? What is being done to improve educational opportunities to help people escape poverty? What is being done to reduce birth rates so the children that are born can be better cared for and provided for? Anthropological studies show that diseases such as malaria thrive in areas torn apart by conflict, strife and poverty. What is being done politically to reduce violence and oppression in these regions? These question apply not just to the African continent, but to all areas of the world. We do so much to prolong and save lives, but what are we doing to improve them? I know there are a lot of smaller programs and initiatives addressing what I just mentioned, but why not the "big bucks?" Eliminating the disease without creating the infrastructure to support the people saved just opens up the society to another crisis. You can't fix one problem without fixing the other.

[JacqueItch]

Your concern is a strange one:

"What if a horrible disease isn't killing?--What do we do then?"

Let's take it to the simplistic analogy of a serial killer---once we've captured and incarcerated the perp, what do we do with the intended victims?

Please, take your thought to a level beyond hypothetical worry. It isn't serving. If enough people became truly pro-life, not only would disease issues improve, but very possibly even violence which is destroying quality of life for the planet.

[brawnwyn]

Blackcat26 is exactly right. Many years ago I worked in an African country where smallpox killed many each year. During that time we participated in a World Health Org. campaign to wipe out the disease. After the vaccination of the entire population,there were no more cases of the killer small pox but a few years later came a drought and famine which wiped out all of those we saved from smallpox. There seems to be some biomechanism to address population control whether it be new diseases(for which there is no known cure)or war and its subsequent destruction. Wiping out malaria from the tropical parts of the undeveloped world will be a prodigious problem.

[JulieSA]

Children tend to die of the disease, but adults who contract it become chronically ill. Adults who are chronically ill with malaria (or HIV) find it hard to to work and care for their families. This negatively affects the economy and the social structure.

Get rid of the disease, and you improve everyone's lives. Get it?

[Libsrule]

YES, but what happens when there are so many people the ecology of the planet becomes strained?

What happens when we save millions only to see them die of starvation or other diseases. The first thing is to educate the masses into understanding how it is they are screwing themselves out of a life to live in the future,both for themselves and their progeny.

Just because we make their lives healthier means nothing if their leaders starve them, they don't have enough work or they just cannot be productive because of taking care of so many children?

Few countries can afford to take care of so many children (as badly as we do, we do try) and we are becoming taxed to the abosolute max.

Just the very idea of allowing everyone who steps foot in this country amnesty and then allowing all of their families to come here and on and on and on isn't being compassionate, it is only making things worse in the LONG RUN. Which is what so many people, of any persuasion just cannot see.

The Long View.

If we refuse to admit it, then we might as well just learn to live in a third world planet.

With the ultra rich, the working poor, the poverty stricken and a very small management class.

Don't believe it? Just look at a lot of the countries around the world that just refuse to do anything about population explosions. They have the exact same thing in their countries.

The EXACT same thing.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Microsoft has finally found some bugs it can fix.

But I kid the good Mr. Gates.

Thank-you Bill and Melinda.


Related:
http://www.worldswimagainstmalaria.com/
Our children helping other children.
$1.4M raised
290,000 nets purchased

7 Jumbo Jets per day (kids dying from malaria). Click the site, click to "downloads" for the video.

Peace.

[cylindar]

Great work!

[paixa3]

Mr. Gates. I say thank you for the lives you will save in the future.

It is wonderful to see tremendous charity coming from a successful business man.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Um, why don't you solve the problem the economical way, and put all those findings
into books, and give those out to the people
that live in problem areas? Those, and bug zappers...

http://www.bugspray.com/catalog/products/page2173.html

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/TOPIC_Mosquito_Control_Guide

???

[notyourproblemYET]

this is great.Its somehow not a cause Id take up first and first most if I had that kind of money,when there are more pressing dangers that face the world's poor.But any cause that helps people is a good cause.Im not one to judge.Plus­,with global warming ,im sure malaria will become a danger to western people..an­d thats the real motivation to eradicate malaria.

[notyourproblemYET]

yes im being sarcastic.

[Seral]

Using a highly detailed regional distribution map of malaria, its impact can be reduced, by acting at places where the urgency is the highest. Hopefully, this is already being done.

I think, there can be many things that can be done to reduce the number of people affected by that. But, without completely controlling poverty, or finding a complete cure (vaccine) for that, the fight will not be very easy, especially if it involves the lives of hundreds of millions of people each year...

[Dave24]

Mr. Gates:

Thank you for placing action behind your words and leading to help our species. In a world filled with distraction (wars fueled by iron-age thinking and belief, absurd politicking by politicians more concerned with their legacies than the Constitution, the suffocation of free speech by demogagues and self-proclaimed prophets), it's inspiring to see what humans are capable of achieving: displayed in the form of empathy by your efforts to combat one of the world's major diseases. Please wield some of your influence to promote the separation of state and church along with secularism.org to ensure our democracy, and to nurture it justly elsewhere. And please promote the writings of Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens: all of whom are concerned about humanity as well, along with the TED conferences www.ted.comm).

[Dave24]

secular.org ---- not secularism.org

[PKM]

Thanks for your efforts. Something as simple as mosquito nets can make quite a difference in the lives of millions in Africa.

http://obamabarack.blogspot.com/