Though increasing efforts have been made over the last decade to control the spread of malaria, over one million people still die each year from a disease that is preventable and curable. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), malaria was the fourth leading cause of death in children in developing countries in 2002 and it remains responsible for as many as two deaths per minute in Africa.

To help raise global awareness of malaria and empower diverse communities into action worldwide, Emory hosted the Malaria Foundation International’s (MFI) Paltalk Malaria Business Leadership Conference in December with the theme “Inspiring the World.”

Mary Galinski, founder and president of MFI and director of Emory’s International Center for Malaria Research and Education (ICMRE), said the conference was a vehicle to reach out to business leaders and people from different backgrounds and communities. The philosophy for continued discovery and education - as well as immediate action to control the disease - underpins the establishment of the ICMRE and the Malaria Business Leadership Conference series. The conference was co-founded in 2005 by hedge funds manager Lance Laifer with the Hedge Funds vs. Malaria initiative.

Galinski, who founded MFI in 1992, joined Emory University’s Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases in 1998 and developed a malaria research program at the Emory Vaccine Center. She has developed a broad-based research program that emphasizes the importance of understanding the disease and its widespread global public health concerns. Along with Yerkes Assistant Research Professor Alberto Moreno, Galinski will begin teaching a new course dedicated to the study of malaria at the Rollins School of Public Health.

Although research remains critical to the fight against malaria, Galinski realizes the necessity in also reaching audiences outside of research labs and academia. The potential for research to develop new malaria drugs and a malaria vaccine is at a peak, given the availability of modern technologies and malaria genome databases, she said, yet malaria research funding remains disproportionate compared with other major diseases.

“This is a battle, but we can win it with increased and persistent efforts,” said Yerkes Research Associate Esmeralda VS Meyer. “Scientists and global health specialists are essential advocates in the fight against malaria, whether to educate the public on the feasibility of developing malaria vaccines and drugs, the importance of current Artemisinin combination therapies, long-lasting insecticide-treated nets, or the use of DDT and indoor residual insecticide spraying of homes,” she said.

The conference involved the participation of business leaders, scientists, public health specialists, sports figures, entertainers, diplomats, teachers, and students. Leaders from the business community presented new models in the fight against malaria, such as franchise development plans for the training and implementation of indoor residual spraying of DDT and the marketing potential for new products like insecticide treated paint.

“How can a preventable disease cause so much death and destruction? Malaria has become a disease of the poor. It doesn’t kill the billionaires of the world, it doesn’t kill the queens and the kings of the world, it kills poor people,” said conference participant Syrulwa Somah, associate professor of Environmental and Occupational Safety and Health at North Carolina A&T State University and founder and executive director of the Liberian History, Education, and Development organization.

Somah used his own country of Liberia as an example. With 90 percent of its population exposed to malaria at any given time, Liberia has lost more people as a result of malaria infection in its history than it has in the fourteen years that it suffered from its recent civil war. Fighting during that period left the capital of Monrovia without electricity or running water. The city’s infrastructure was destroyed and as a result, puddles and ditches in the city remain filled with stagnant water, creating a breeding ground for mosquitoes and thus, exposure to malaria. When asked to name Liberia’s prevailing health concern, recently-elected President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf responded while visiting Emory in September, “Malaria, malaria, malaria.”

Somah announced a 5-15-year malaria eradication plan that started with the six-day conference “We Want No More Malaria in Liberia” on December 14 in Monrovia. Liberia was one of fifteen countries selected under President Bush’s $1.2 billion, five-year Malaria Initiative established in 2005 that aims to cut malaria-related deaths by 50 percent in target countries in Africa.

One way to further enhance this type of interest from developed countries in malaria is by reaching out to the media, said Dr. Daniel Colley, director of the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases at the University of Georgia.

“Inspiring a new world will very much depend on the media. Those [organizations] that understand the media are essential to the fight against malaria. Research is essential in ending malaria,” he said. “However, when you are out there in the field, the media can have a huge impact on public opinion and on whether malaria and prevention programs will actually save lives and alleviate suffering.”

Speaker Roland Schatz, founder and chief executive officer of Media Tenor, a Swiss-based strategic media intelligence organization, has teamed with Galinski and supporters in the fight against malaria to communicate with the media about the importance of the disease’s global threat. In 2006, MFI received the Media Tenor Special Award, which includes one year of consultancy in order to help MFI build media awareness of the threat of malaria.

A webcast of the last two conferences will be available on MFI’s updated website www.malaria.org in February.