Mark Green is the Managing Director of Malaria No More’s Malaria Policy Center in Washington, DC. He has served as U.S. Ambassador to Tanzania and as a U.S. Congressman.
‘Malaria is deadly and yet we can prevent it with simple and affordable tools if we get them in the hands of the people that need them the most.’ That is a simple statement and it is one that I spend my days presenting. As the Managing Director of the Malaria Policy Center, my mandate is pretty clear, ‘advocate for an end to malaria deaths.’ But in Washington it can be all too easy to focus on a narrow interpretation of that mandate; after all this is a town where people establish careers by defending or championing just one issue. Today in the global health arena we don’t have that option. We must integrate work against a number of diseases to be the most effective and truly change our world.
I have spent a lot of time as a teacher and Ambassador in Africa and one thing I remember is that sick Africans don’t visit different clinics depending on their illness. There are not separate clinics for malaria and river blindness in the most remote of villages. If communities are lucky enough to have even one clinic it must respond to and treat any number of diseases. I think our approach to global health efforts must recognize this and find ways to combine efforts for the greatest impact.
Malaria and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are perfect examples of how we can pair efforts and they have seen success individually, showing us that we can realize improved health systems and an end to deaths from disease.
