Normal Rotary Club member chair Drake Zimmerman recently marked the distribution of three billion mosquito nets worldwide through an organization he helped create.
Malaria is a bloodborne parasite spread by the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito or by the use of contaminated needles. Malaria causes anemia due to loss of red blood cells and can often lead to kidney failure, chills, fever, coma and sometimes death.
Inspired by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Zimmerman started the Malaria Project on July 1, 1993, after hearing about a new medicine that cures malaria called artemisinin.
“We as Rotarians have the role of being leaders and identifying where are the gaps," Zimmerman said. "What needs to happen? What does the scientific community need in order to move forward with this particular intervention? What does the donor community need in terms of data to move forward and to help fund a particular intervention that is very effective? What does the local community need?"
Planning, fundraising and distributing mosquito nets to countries in Africa and Asia was a four-stage process: a pilot project, then proof of scale, the distributing the nets countywide, then across multiple countries.
Through a Rotary matching grant, the pilot study was conducted in Ghana in 2002, where 14,600 insecticide-baited nets were distributed through an existing measles vaccination campaign. To further prove the mosquito nets’ effectiveness, over 25,000 nets were distributed in four districts in Zambia in 2003.
“We got the same results,” Zimmerman said. “Higher coverage rates than ever before have been achieved with greater impact at a much lower cost.”
The following year, the Rotarians entered the third stage of the process, distributing over a million nets to the people of Togo. Multi-country distributions began in 2005, with more than 14 million nets being distributed in just a few years.
“When people don’t have malaria, they can show up for work, they can plant their crops, they can tend their crops, harvest their crops, sell their crops, take care of their families,” Zimmerman said. “The impact on the community of not having malaria is absolutely gigantic.”
RAM Global is helping to distribute more than 280 million mosquito nets each year to more than 20 countries.
“Right now, we’ve had district after district after district get themselves cleared of malaria and then certified and they have this local pride in maintaining that certification of no cases being transmitted,” Zimmerman said. “So we as RAM Global, looking globally, are taking those methods and taking them to India, we’re taking them to Africa where there are much higher rates of malaria.”
In addition to providing nets, RAM Global helps train community health care workers to learn to treat malaria and encourages a sense of belonging through community clean up and soccer tournaments for youth. Rotarians plan to give out donated soccer balls for youth soccer clubs that participate in cleanup efforts.
RAM Global is also partnering with the Rotary Action Group for Maternal and Child Health and the Rotary Action Group for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene to further build healthy communities.
Zimmerman says his connection with Rotary makes it all possible.
“Thanks to being a Rotarian, I feel highly honored being a part of this group that has the ability to take an idea from Normal, Illinois, or from wherever it happens to be and spread it out to villages in Africa and Asia,” Zimmerman said.
RAM Global's efforts helped significantly reduce malaria cases worldwide, but cases have increased in recent years.
The World Health Organization (WHO) reports there were 249 million cases of malaria in 2022.
The WHO cites conflict and humanitarian crises, resource constraints and biological challenges including drug and insecticide resistance as slowing the effort to eradicate malaria. The WHO also notes extreme weather events fueled by climate change are also aiding the survival of the mosquitoes that transmit malaria.
