Definitely one of the most fascinating aspects of the current malaria eradication movement in Africa, for me, is the historical perspective of having eliminated malaria in the U.S. and Europe when it was a common killer over 50 years ago, and then our efforts to copy that success in Africa now.
Who knew that the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta was originally founded to eradicate malaria in places like Tennessee? Or that malaria in the U.S. was widespread and unchecked, with a prevalence rate in some areas of 30%?
I did not.
But there are people around me who remember that time and the world we were living in.
Here a federal government program finished a job in 1951 that it had started in 1947, and rid our country of a previously endemic and dangerous killer disease that at one time had reached from Florida to Seattle.
Now the U.S. Peace Corps is joining the fight in Africa, in partnership with the President's Malaria Initiative and others, to finally rid the African continent of the same dreadful and burdensome disease that still kills an African kid about every 45 seconds or so.
Peace Corps has made a commitment, through the "Stomping Out Malaria in Africa" initiative, to revive an organizational goal that was part of JFK's original vision when he first founded the agency.
JFK had a hopeful vision for a global community living in peace, and he knew that with cooperation and determination, we could meet nearly any challenge.
And our current president knows too: "yes, we can".
When I started up the STOMP program in Tanzania, I was blessed to work alongside some people who share an ageless and timeless belief: that we can each be one small part of something tremendously positive and large and important.
You can too.
Surf over to facebook.com/StompOutMalaria and "like" the page, so that your friends can see it and maybe they will "like" it too.
Why bother?
To help us all remember, in this time of economic strife, that our real wealth is a measure of our caring for the world that we live among, even when the going is tough.
It's not the 1940's, but I know that we can make history.
