By Emily GlazerThe Daily Northwestern
After Kamardip Singh contracted malaria while studying in the West African country of Mali last year, she became interested in learning more about the disease and how to prevent it.
“I had money to afford the medicine, which is usually six to eight dollars and inexpensive by U.S. standard … but when I came back to America I wanted to see what I could do to prevent it here,” the Weinberg senior said.
Singh jumped at the opportunity to speak to students in Burkina Faso, Ecuador and Ghana about the global fight against malaria at a live videoconference hosted by Northwestern’s chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy.
Singh and about 15 other NU students attended the event at the University Library Forum Room on Thursday.
The face-to-face videoconference, titled “Veto the ‘Squito: How We Can Work Together to End Malaria,” connected students in a live, direct dialogue.
Amy Hamblin, a Medill senior and former Daily staffer, was the local host of the event. She is the Illinois and Wisconsin state director for Americans for Informed Democracy.
The videoconference featured presentations by Scott Case, chief operating officer of Malaria No More; Dr. Daniel Hussar, Remington professor of pharmacy at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia; Dr. George Dimopoulos, a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University; and Suzanne O’Malley, an author who survived malaria.
Students at NU, Yale University, the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Cornell University, Marquette University and Texas State University talked to students and others from countries where malaria is a serious problem.
Malaria kills 3,000 children each day, which Case compared to a “9/11 every day or a tsunami every month.”
The disease does not receive enough attention because it is not prevalent in the United States compared to other countries, Case said.
“It is not a disease we can easily identify, due to our lack of our awareness,” Hussar said. “Our goal is to increase awareness and increase sensitivity.”
Brendan Higgins, a McCormick junior, attended the videoconference because he is in a microbiology and public health class. He is preparing a presentation on malaria.
“I wanted to learn first-hand who experiences this disease on a day-to-day basis,” he said.
Malaria often can be prevented by a bed net, which costs about $10. But many people living in affected countries cannot afford the nets, a speaker from Burkina Faso said.
A lack of education is another large obstacle in many of these countries.
“Most villages do not have access to hospitals and most people cannot read, so they can’t access information in newspapers,” the Burkina Faso speaker said.
Several participants in Ghana agreed that there is a lack of education due to language barriers in local villages.
Videoconference participants ultimately agreed that medication is available in the industrialized world, but the disease remains rampant in less-affluent countries.
“Students here in the U.S. underestimate the scope of malaria and how many people it affects,” Hamblin said. “It is a disease of poverty because people cannot afford basic bed nets, education or clean drinking water, and one that generates poverty due to the brain drain and young people dying.”
Reach Emily Glazer at [email protected].
