Malaria makes the Big Time

For those of you who have been following along at home for some time, you probably already know that I’m a malaria geek. So when a new report hits the media with a lovely tale of how malaria is on the run in this part of the world, it’s really pretty exciting. In Rwanda, malaria deaths have dropped more than 60% in a few months, just by those in a position to do so making sure that enough mosquito nets and effective malaria treatments drugs reach the population.

Malaria has received more attention and consequent funding in the last few years than in has since the failed global eradication campaign of the 1960s and ’70s. The efforts of the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, the World Bank Malaria Booster Program and the President’s Malaria Initiative have mobilized incredible resources and political support to half the burden of this disease.

Battling malaria should be a simple issue. The politics are not as controversial as with HIV/AIDS, the technical issues are less complicated than TB, and there are more resources available than clean water has. As the report says, all we need to do to get mosquito nets and treatment drugs to those who need them most: kids under 5.

I can tell you from first hand experience that this small feat is not quite as straightforward as it sounds. Even with the wealth of global funding available, there is often still not enough money to go around. It’s only recently that the mosquito net manufacturers have been gearing up their production facilities quickly enough to respond to the need for product. The new artemisinin-based antimalaria drugs need to be stored at cool temperatures - much cooler than health centers in the tropics where electricity is a constant challenge.

I spent most of my days trying to find a way to make things happen, whether it be ensuring that trucks have fuel to carry drugs to where they need to be or working with the Ministry of Health to determine which drugs to order in the first place. At the end of the day, it’s hard to believe I’ve accomplished more than a few sent emails. But reports like this one are enough to make one believe that baby steps will take you where you’re going. It just takes patience.

Parking ticket graveyard

Having lived in New York and Washington, I know all about the diplomats who park where they want. What I didn’t know is that all those unpaid parking tickets can come back to haunt the offender’s nation. I recently discovered that unpaid parking tickets of cars registered to foreign nationals get subtracted from their home country’s foreign assistance package.

Israel is apparently the biggest offender of the last year with over $2 million in unpaid fines. Considering Israel receives more US foreign aid than any other country in the world, it’s not surprising the Israelis aren’t particularly worried about finding that golden parking spot, the requisite 15ft from the nearest fire hydrant.

I suppose I shouldn’t be pointing any figures since I left an unpaid ticket behind last time I left Namibia. In my own defense, I did try to pay the ticket on the day it was issued but couldn’t manage to get through the bureaucracy without a fairy godmother. I don’t know how invested the Namibian government is in withholding assistance to the US, but I do have a friend who was brought up on contempt of court charges in Windhoek when he showed up in board shorts to defend his habitual forgetfulness on the parking fine front.

Lights out

I was going to tell you this yesterday, but the power was out. From 8am until around 11pm. If you are in the habit of spending your Saturday night watching Congolese television, you probably heard that this was coming.

Kinshasa gets its power from the Inga Dam on the Congo River, located in the western province of Bas Congo and was a baby of the Mobutu regime. The dam was intended to provide power –via a 1700km electrical line- to the mines in Shaba (now Katanga Province) which had secessionist leanings. With one switch, Mobutu could literally turn the lights out on the entire province, thereby theoretically squelching any bad behaviour.

When the dam opened in 1982, it only functioned at 10% capacity. However, if the dam complex were rehabilitated to function at full power, including a new dam site, for a price tag of about $6 billion, it could provide up to 39,000MW of power — enough to supply Africa’s power needs and then some. That’s three times as much as any existing hydroelectric dam. And because the Congo River crosses the equator (twice), part of the river always has rains, maintaining a steady volume of water at the river mouth.

My –probably flawed- understanding of the current situation is that only one of the existing turbines is functioning, which means that if that one goes, we’re all in the dark for some time. Word on the street is that some smarty-pants up river -possibly at the World Bank who is investing in a bit of Inga-remodeling- decided to go ahead and shut down the dam yesterday for maintenance (a word that doesn’t usually exist in this country), leaving Kinshasa without power for a good 12+ hours.

While this certainly isn’t the first time or the last that we’ve been without power on any given day, it’d be nice to think that at some point in the future, more than 5% of Congolese will be able to complain about having their power cut in the first place.