The Roll Back Malaria Partnership accellerates its fight against the disease

(Vatican Radio) Malaria affects almost half of the world's population and claims the life of a child every minute... the good news is that not only is the deadly trend being reversed, but with the concerted effort of world leaders, NGOs and other organizations, malaria can be treated and ultimately, defeated.

One champion in the fight against the disease is the Right Honorable Stephen O’Brien, MP in the British Government who has been campaigning against malaria for over 30 years.

As from Friday, May 17, he has also been appointed Global Advocate for the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, sponsored by the World Health Organization.

In this new role Rt. Hon. Stephen O’Brien MP will work with parliamentarians and other elected officials in malaria endemic countries to help reinforce political commitment to accelerating the fight against malaria in the countdown to the 2015 Millennium Development Goals.

Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni asked the Rt Hon Stephen O’Brien to explain how the Roll Back Malaria Partnership works and what it aims to achieve…

Listen to the interview…

The Rt Hon O’Brien explains that the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, was launched in 1998 by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank to mobilize global support and resources, and build effective partnerships to reduce the malaria burden.

O’Brien explains that malaria is in fact endemic in many countries. “Especially in the poorest countries it has a debilitating effect in communities, and for children under five years of age and for pregnant mothers it is very often a death sentence. It is also very debilitating forl those who, often repeatedly get it, causing them to be unable to support their families and take part in their economies”. This he says is a reality right across the globe, but particularly concentrated in parts of sub-Saharan Africa. “Our objective” – he says “is to support those countries and to bring together the malaria control programmes and academic thinking to make sure – seeing we have got the tools to deal with this – that they are well applied”.

Furthermore, the objective – he points out – is not just saving lives; it’s also improving lives so that developing countries may take their place in the global community.

The Rt Hon O’Brien points out that he himself has been engaged in this field for over 30 years. Within the UK Parliament he has been working for the past 10 years to galvanize the will and the motivation of the political side through Parliament. By involving and motivating his fellow MPs – of all parties – he says “they were able to demonstrate that malaria is a wholly avoidable, wholly treatable disease, that therefore they realised it would be possible to make a massive contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals”. Clearly, he says, “we would like to be part of what comes after them as well. This will enable those in charge to decide “how to best use the hard-earned taxpayers’ money in the various programmes and through the Department of International Development to bear down on this avoidable and treatable disease”

Working with many partners – O’Brien says - as well as in bi-lateral programmes, is something that has escalated in the past 10 years to become a very significant part of what the UK – in partnership - is able to offer to endemic countries and international organizations.

Regarding the MDG target which is less than 1000 days away, the Rt Hon O’Brien says the British Prime Minister is one of the Co-Chairs who are working very intensively to make recommendations to the UN Secretary General as to what should come after the MDG in 2015. He expects “those will be a continuing mix of human development goals such as bearing down on disease and giving people a life chance, but also a greater emphasis on some of the economic development opportunities which need to be put in place” O’Brien says he is personally optimistic that this will meet expectations and that malaria will continue to be one of the major focuses as to what we can achieve.

Speaking of his own interest in the battle against malaria he says that he is currently engaged in a number of positions that have to do with public health and tropical disease, but his commitment actually goes back a long time. O’ Brien narrates that his interest in the cause was “initially sparked by a three-man expedition he undertook with two friends when they left Cambridge – one of whom is a scientist, another a very good cook as well as fundraiser – and himself who speaks French and was able to keep vehicles on the road”. The three friends – he says – “travelled through the Sahara Desert and through the Sahel (the RH Stephen O’Brien is currently the UK Special Envoy to the Sahel Region) all the way from Algiers down beyond Jos in Nigeria. We were collecting mosquitos to show that the worst type of malaria, the one carried by the anopheles mosquito, was able to breach the natural barrier Northwards of the Sahara and there were instances of this deadly disease in Algiers. We discovered that this was the case, and that the reasons for this could be overcome through various control measures as well as by recognizing that the spread of malaria was due to conflict and instability in the time of the Biafra war which had led to a lot of road transportation across the desert which in turn had become the vector that had got the parasite, borne by the Mosquito, up into the Mediterrean/North African State”. Once he became a politician – O’Brien says – he realised he had a platform to do something about it. He also realized that this was one of the great opportunities – one of the great prizes - that our generation “as global citizens” has to deliver, and for once “try and get ahead of the curve of the mosquito and the parasite and to get ahead to the point where we can have a credible plan to try to eliminate it...”.