Malaria nets. Photo: Tomas de la Maza (flickr)

Is malaria's reign of terror coming to an end?

Every year, 500 million people fall seriously ill with malaria — a disease that induces fever, chills, nausea, flu-like illness and, without treatment, coma and death. More than 1 million people die each year from malaria — almost all in the developing world. The near-universal poverty of its victims is one reason it has not received the attention, and therefore the money, necessary to secure its demise.

Even in the face of these scary statistics, malaria may be about to meet it's match. The Economist reports a renewed sense of interest in its eradication, mainly because it jeopardizes the UN's Millennium Development Goals, a set of benchmarks in health, education and human welfare that world leaders committed to attain by 2015.

There's a cost-benefit rationale, too. Malaria costs Africa upwards of $12 billion a year in health expenses and lost productivity. Yet a five-year eradication plan might cost as little as $2.2 billion a year, according to a report by Malaria No More and McKinsey & Company.

With these numbers in mind, last week the UN unveiled a new campaign to fight malaria at its most critical spots. The Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership — created to "enable sustained delivery and use of the most effective prevention and treatment for those affected most by malaria — staged the first World Malaria Day last week. It coincided with a UN plan to spray inside houses and distribute insecticide-treated bed nets to "all people at risk" of the disease by the end of 2010.

Any effort to stamp out malaria must deal with an added layer of complexity. When diminished but not destroyed, malaria can come back with a vengeance. Any letup in the eradication campaign may end up actually increasing the numbers of those at risk.

But considering how much malaria undermines the war on poverty, a risk taken to ensure its eradication may be a risk worth taking.

Photo: Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters

For months we have been following increasingly urgent reports about food scarcity, rising prices and vulnerable populations. Last week, the World Food Program said the crisis is a silent tsunami that is "threatening to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger."

The World Food Program says it has never seen a crisis of this proportion. Analysts expect it will be difficult to reverse in the short term. The Financial Times says humanitarian aid at levels comparable to Indonesia's 2004 tsunami response will be needed to prevent the starvation of millions.

For Mercy Corps the increase in food prices is hurting the very people our program staff around the world are working to support.

Reports from those working most closely with affected communities confirm that the situation is dire — and has the potential to grow much worse.

Penny Anderson, Mercy Corps' food security program officer, told OPB radio: "I've been working with Mercy Corps for over eight years now and I have never seen anything like it."

In Niger, prices of bread, powdered milk and wheat flour have spiked, exacerbating the West African nation's precarious food situation. Currently about two-thirds of the population is at serious risk, with shortages pushing the country closer to famine.

In Syria, spiraling food prices have forced Mercy Corps to cut back on the amount of food we can buy and distribute to hundreds of Iraqi refugee families.

In Tajikistan, where Mercy Corps recently distributed blankets and generators to help residents keep warm during an unusually harsh winter, about 40 percent of households in the Rasht Valley are down to no more than one warm meal a day. Neighboring Kazakhstan has suspended wheat exports — shutting off Tajikistan's primary supply of the grain.

Like several other humanitarian aid agencies, Mercy Corps has established a Global Food Crisis fund to help its field teams respond to needs arising from the worst global food crisis in recent memory.