The time is now! That’s what we keep saying about the ELCA Malaria Campaign. The ELCA is proud to be a part of a global movement, a movement that has been picking up speed for the past ten years.
At increasing speeds in the past ten years, mosquito nets have been distributed to affected communities. Technologies have been researched and circulated. Educational programs have taught countless households. Medications have been administered. And at an increasing pace in the past ten years, the incidences of malaria have gone down!
When I began my position at the ELCA Churchwide office a little over a year ago, we often used this statistic: every 30 seconds a child in Africa dies of malaria.
But this year? This year it’s every 45 seconds. Correct me if I get the math wrong, but I think that means that global efforts to roll back malaria have resulted in saving the life of an African child every two minutes.
That’s amazing work. But we know that as long as even one life is threatened by a preventable and treatable disease, we must keep working.
This article from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation says a little more about the progress we’ve made as a global community in rolling back malaria in the past ten years. And we’re glad to be a part of the work in the next years.
-Jessica Nipp,
ELCA Malaria Campaign
