MWR : MEDA casts a wider net to save lives in Tanzania

Last updated November 24.

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May 18, 2009 issue

MEDA casts a wider net to save lives in Tanzania

By Mennonite Economic Development Associates

WATERLOO, Ont. — Mennonite Economic Development Associates is on the front lines of a $21 million project in Tanzania to get children sleeping under life-protecting malaria nets.

The malaria nets these boys in Tanzania are holding save an estimated six lives for every 1,000 sold. — Photo provided by MEDA

MEDA will coordinate the distribution of 7.2 million long-lasting insecticidal nets, or LLINs, at no cost to children under age 5.

Nets will be distributed at village events over the next year through a massive nationwide catch-up campaign.

MEDA is working on the project with Tanzania’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and the Global Fund for Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The project’s aim is to cover 80 percent of all children under 5 with an LLIN.

Tanzania sees 18 million cases of malaria — and 80,000 deaths resulting from it — annually. Eighty percent of the victims are children under 5 and pregnant women.

Ninety per cent of Tanzania’s 40 million residents live in areas where malaria is endemic or at epidemic risk. Pregnant women and young children are at highest risk.

Since 2004, MEDA has distributed more than 4.6 million insecticide-treated nets to pregnant women and infants through Hati Punguzo, a program of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare’s National Malaria Control Program and funded by the Global Fund and USAID’s President’s Malaria Initiative.

This year, in addition to the mass LLIN distribution, MEDA will also upgrade the Hati Punguzo voucher program targeted at pregnant women and infants.

With the new voucher, customers will pay 500 shillings (about 30 cents) regardless of the retail price or where they live.

This is in contrast to the previous voucher, which covered from 60 to 70 percent of the net’s variable cost.

MEDA has developed a distribution network of almost 7,000 retailers, 260 wholesalers and four manufacturers. Women receive a voucher during prenatal visits at one of 4,300 clinics across the country.

With an estimated six lives spared for every 1,000 nets sold, Hati Punguzo and MEDA have already saved more than 27,000 young lives.

Comments

As one who served in Tanzania for six years (with Eastern Mennonite Missions), I with to congratulate MEDA for this project. Malaria remains a terrible scourge, and I believe this will have a great impace and save many lives.

- Harold Wenger (may 13 at 3:34 p.m.)
i think the best way to do is to educate people and society,on how to make the enviroment clean ,nets are not only the solution for malaria.

- vaitina (dec 23 at 3:32 a.m.)

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