How to save 7,000 children per day

Odd Andersen/AFP

As Jeffrey Sachs, the world's most passionate economist, writes in the new issue of FP, malaria kills between one and three million children every year—around 7,000 a day. Ninety percent of those are in Africa. Yet the tragedy of the situation is that malaria is entirely preventable, Sachs argues:

A simple package of technologies could bring malaria under control by 2010 across Africa. By combining malaria prevention (through insecticide-treated bed nets and malaria treatment) with highly effective drugs known as artemisinin-based combination therapies, it is possible to reduce disease transmission markedly and to save lives.

Adding weight to Sachs' argument, the BBC reported just today that pregnant women in Africa can reduce their risk of miscarriage or still birth by up to a third just by sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets, which cost about $4. And as Sachs emphasizes, these straightforward measures could not only reduce the prevalence of malaria illness and death by as much as 90 percent, but significantly and favorably alter Africa's long-term health and economic prosperity.

So, who should pick up the tab? ... [T]he total cost of comprehensive malaria control in Africa would be roughly $3 billion per year until 2015. That is too much for impoverished Africa, but it’s pocket change for the rich world. There are more than a billion of us in the high-income countries, so the cost is less than $3 per person.

Seems like an entirely reasonable request to me. And when better to start taking action than on Malaria Awareness Day, April 25?