Preliminary studies of Insecticide Treated Nets show huge effects, reducing not only Malaria but other diseases by a 3:1 ratio! Even neighboring villages show effects.

Breakthroughs in disease treatment since 1980:

Rotary International campaigns to vacinate the world against Polio. Their strategies become the Rotary Model.

The Rotary Model evolves through the Measles Initiative to include local empowerment.

Preliminary studies of Insecticide Treated Nets show huge effects, reducing not only Malaria but other diseases by a 3:1 ratio! Even neighboring villages show effects. Release of data on Western Kenya and the Lawry district prove up ITNs as very effective against Malaria and other diseases.

The Measles Initiative allows the Roll Back Malaria campaign to piggyback, delivering multiple inputs and maximizing effiency and reducing costs.

Thus deaths from Polio and Measles are down from ... and with Roll Back Malaria, we can pay down the debt of children's lives. Saving hundreds and thousands of children from death, reduce illness, and thereby increase the capability and strength of health care systems, and grow economies.

Measles and Malaria: The Breakthrough

The big breakthrough: the Measles Campaign worked out how to add Insecticide Treated Nets to the vaccination campaigns for measles. Measles Campaigns reach about 90% of children under the age of 15 in each country it visits. The target audience for malaria, for ITNs, is a subset of measles' target. Malaria mostly kills children under 5 and pregnant women. In fact, the Measles Campaigns achieved the highest coverage rates of ITNs ever recorded, at the lowest cost per net distributed ever recorded. The Measles and Malaria (M & M) trials had many partners, including Rotarians Against Malaria.

The Measles Campaign covers about one country per month in areas with malaria. Sub-Saharan Africa has 35-42 countries as the targets for malaria control. Do a little math. Delivering ITNs to the entire area, thus achieving 'full coverage' could take as little as 3 years. Some countries are very small or already have programs putting ITNs over every child and pregnant woman.

M & M (Measles and Malaria) sets up the WHO/Roll Back Malaria for Speedy Success.
The Roll Back Malaria goal is to reach 80% coverage by 2010, which many still consider overly optimistic. Yet, given current trajectories of progress, 2006 could be the 'mop-up' year for dispursement of ITNs and expansion into other interventions!

Now that adding ITNs to the Measles Campaign could achieve even higher rates than 80% coverage (measles campaigns regularly reach >90% of children) several years earlier. The M & M campaign could achieve the overall goal by itself. When have goals of major international organizations been achieved on time, let alone many years in advance?

Future Rounds
On the second and future rounds, Measles Campaigns vaccinate guess what group of people? Children under 5. Adding pregnant women is a simple incremental bit of information, on average 3% of the population.

Insecticide Treated Nets last 4-5 years. Guess how often Measles Campaigns come through for follow up sweeps? Measles Campaigns return every 3-4 years. Full coverage with ITNs for all targeted audiences can be maintained as necessary.

New Insecticides. The new versions of long lasting insecticides last, that is, they continue to kill mosquitoes, for several years. In other words, the new nets last from Measles Campaign to Measles Campaign.

Synchronicities: The WHO approved new insecticides essentially simultaneously with the review of the Measles and Malaria request for funds. We had funds for only 14,600 ITNs for the initial Proof of Concept trials in Lawra District, in Northwest Ghana. How many families: 14,543. The lead researcher commented at the time: "We used up some Karma on that one, didn't we?"