By J. Samia Mair
What can $10 buy you? Not much these days. You can buy a cup of coffee for yourself and a friend at one of the specialty coffee chains. Or, you can buy 1 movie ticket, but forget about the popcorn. Or, you can save a life!
Only $10 will buy a bed net and medicine to save a child or a pregnant woman from malaria. Imagine, forgo 1 movie that you probably should not be watching anyway and save a life. Is there really a choice?
Last night something incredible happened. As one of the illustrious speakers stated, “Tonight is the beginning of a movement.”
United for Change hosted its inaugural event United Against Malaria, One Body : One Goal in Maryland. More than a dozen knowledgeable and inspiring speakers spoke about malaria, what can be done to eradicate it, and what Islam teaches about our responsibility to humanity. There were tears, laughter, indignation, but mostly hope–hope that the American Muslim community can work together to bring real change in the world.
The promise and tragedy of malaria is that it is preventable and treatable.
The promise, of course, is that this deadly disease can be eradicated. The statistics are alarming. About half of the world’s population (3.3 billion) is a risk of contracting malaria; about 250 million people contract the disease each year and over 1 million people die, mostly children under the age of 5. As one speaker summed it up, “You have to be dead inside not to care.”
Simple things like bed nets, medicine, and changes to the physical environment (i.e., removing water sources where mosquitoes breed) can make an enormous difference. Malaria is described as the “low hanging fruit” of public health initiatives.
Malaria was endemic to the United States not so long ago. In fact, many of us learned last night that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the main U.S. government agency dedicated to preventing disease and promoting health, was established in 1946 to end malaria.
The tragedy of malaria is that despite our knowledge of how to eradicate it, it has not been done.
Where has the money gone that could have been used to save millions of lives? Much of it has been spent on the two major economic enterprises, armaments and drugs, according to one speaker. That does not particularly bode well for the human psyche to say the least.
Over the next week or so, I intend to post a series of articles on yesterday’s event, the public health and Islamic knowledge that was shared, and why yesterday may have been a turning point for Muslim Americans.
If you missed it, don’t worry. There are and will be many opportunities to help in this campaign to end malaria and to usher in a new era of Muslim cooperation for the greater good.
For more info: The History of Malaria, Islamic Relief’s Bite the Bug campaign
Source: Examiner.com