AP Features, February 23rd, 2007
Two medical students are fighting malaria in west Africa by raising money through their organization to buy and distribute mosquito nets there.
Death inspired them to act. Andy Sherman, who once worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, lost three of his friends there to the mosquito-borne illness, including a 9-year-old girl.
Sherman and a friend, Jesse Matthews, now medical students at Saint Louis University, then started a non-profit organization called NetLife. Its motto: saving lives one net at a time.
Malaria kills more than 1 million people every year and is the leading cause of death in African children under age 5, they said. Tens of millions more suffer chronically from the debilitating disease, even though it is preventable and curable.
The mosquitoes that cause malaria are largely active from dusk to dawn, so insecticide-treated mosquito nets hung over beds are an inexpensive way to help prevent malaria, Sherman and Matthews said.
"Previously when we bought them, they were $8.50 (euro6.5) a net. That's way more than a typical villager in Senegal could afford," said Sherman, 29. The group now can get them for $5 (euro3.8) each and distributes them for free in remote African villages, traveling by bicycle..
The two men, currently working at a Saint Louis hospital, last went to Africa in 2005 to distribute 600 nets, and will return again this summer for 10 weeks to deliver 1,000 more.
Before dropping off the nets, they scout out a village, talk to the chief and make a list of women in the community. Then they return with the nets and involve villagers in a skit explaining how to use them. They then distribute them to the women, who make sure their families are protected by the net when they sleep.
The reaction is immediate: "Every time we give out the nets, there's a big dance party and we cannot stop it," Sherman said.
Nationally, other efforts to distribute mosquito nets have gotten some high-profile support.
In December, First Lady Laura Bush suggested American school children could donate $10 (euro7.6) each to buy insecticide-treated nets for Africa.
Ana Sports Illustrated magazine columnist Rick Reilly urged readers to make $20 (euro15) donations to buy anti-malaria nets to the "Nothing But Nets" campaign through the United Nations Foundation.
Sherman and Matthews said the focus on donating the mosquito nets can only help their cause.
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On the 'Net:
Netlife: http://www.netlifeafrica.org
