UNICEF program helps fight malaria in Africa – Rehana Meghani

Local woman spearheads fundraising campaign

Sandra Thomas, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, December 05, 2007

This Christmas, you can buy expensive gifts for people who don’t really need anything.

Or for just $10, you can purchase an insecticide-treated bed net that will protect a child in Africa from contracting malaria for up to five years.

Rehana Meghani, an education for development specialist with UNICEF and spearhead of the UNICEF Spread the Net campaign in Vancouver, hopes people will choose the latter gift

“A lot of people don’t know much about malaria,” said Meghani, who’s studying law at the University of Victoria. “But it’s killing one child every 10 seconds.”

The campaign wants Canadians to purchase 500,000 nets for use in Africa. To date 65,000 have been purchased. Across Canada industrialist and former Liberal MP Belinda Stronach and comedian Rick Mercer are championing the campaign.

UNICEF’s Rehana Meghani hopes Canadians
give generously to buy special mosquito nets for African kids.

Malaria is a long-lasting blood disease that is often fatal. But Meghani is one of the lucky ones. Born in Tanzania, the 25-year-old contracted malaria five times before her family moved to Canada when she was eight years old.

“In Tanzania I used to sleep under a bed net,” said Meghani. “The female mosquitoes that carry malaria come out during night time when people are asleep.”

According to Spread the Net, malaria is the largest single cause of death among African children under the age of five and kills more than 750,000 children per year. Without concerted action the death rate is expected to double in the next 20 years. Malaria is transmitted by female, night-biting mosquitoes and once in the bloodstream can destroy thousands of red blood cells in a few hours. Children, with their small bodies and immature immune systems, are particularly vulnerable to severe illness and death.

“If you get treatment right away it’s totally treatable,” said Meghani. “But if you don’t you can die.”

The nets have been shown to reduce mosquito bites by 95 per cent and protect more than 500,000 children a year. Each net can protect as many as four children.

The mosquito nets can be purchased through UNICEF’s Gifts of Magic catalogue, the Spread the Net website and through World Vision. The Gifts of Magic catalogue also allows the purchase of many lifesaving and community building gifts, such as complete first-aid kits for $35, School in a Box for $250, three shovels for $20 and 11 baby blankets for $45. One dose of medication to stop the transmission of HIV between a pregnant mother and her unborn baby costs $50 while the cost to support one child orphaned by AIDS is $110 and includes vitamins, medicine, school books and school fees.

World Vision offers similar gifts, but also allows for the purchase of larger items such as the materials needed to build a secure home, the cost to drill a well, livestock, schoolroom furniture or a fish farm. While a fish farm for a family costs $65, a beekeeping hive is $100 and clean water for a family is $150. Two hens and a rooster cost $55, a dairy cow costs $600 and three little pigs are $120. A mobile medical clinic can be stocked for $400.

For more information go to http://www.unicefgiftsofmagic.ca, http://www.spreadthenet.org or http://www.WorldVision.ca.

Source: Vancouver Courier