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| Malaria is no fun. Trust me on this. |
"Bernie" over at Planck's Constant seems to think it is though.
Apparently, mosquitoes don't cause malaria*, but poverty and ignorance do. Bizarre.
If an almighty God came down from heaven and magically removed poverty and ignorance, malaria would remain. If He instead chose to remove mosquitoes, malaria would be eradicated overnight.
Back in 1933, 30% of the residents in the Tennessee River valley area were affected by malaria. Due to the cooperation of thirteen south-eastern states and the extensive spraying of DDT, malaria was all but eliminated by 1947.
Even today, malaria still has a presence in the States. It is kept in check by extensive malaria control programs in California, Florida, New Jersey, Louisiana, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, and Texas, among others.
I wonder how Bernie - a resident of the States (judging by his blog) - would feel if he were present in the Tennessee River valley area in the '30s and the government let him wallow in his "poverty and ignorance"?
Or how would he feel if his aunt contracted malaria after one of the aforementioned states pulled its funding?
Folks like Bernie tend to repeat the mantra that the market will solve everything: Don't send nets to Africa and some entrepreneur will step forward and sell nets to the locals. Ta da! Problem solved without foreign intervention.
News flash: There is no market in many parts of Africa! The residents of Buyaya - where Meaningful Volunteer is based - cannot participate in a market based economy because they have no discretionary income.
Most residents survive as sustenance farmers, harvesting fewer and fewer crops as the years go by as the soil gets depleted. They are - in effect - spending more than they make and are caught in a poverty trap. They cannot buy nets because they have less-than-no-money.
Ideally, Africa would become self-sufficient and market forces could kick in. Meaningful Volunteer tries its best to create disposable incomes through initiatives like Mama Pamba and Grassroots Uganda.
But, in the meantime as residents of Buyaya struggle everyday with malaria, Meaningful Volunteer will continue with its malaria program as Bernie looks upon dispassionately.
* Technically true. The malaria parasite that lives in mosquito saliva causes malaria
