Letter To the President of Ghana, President John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor
April 20, 2007
Your Excellency Dr. John Kofi Agyekum Kufuor
President of the Republic of Ghana
The Ozu Castle
Accra, Ghana
Dr. Mr. President.
The Board of Directors, officers and members of the Liberian History, Education, and Development, Inc. (LIHEDE) bring you post-independence celebration greetings and best wishes, on the occasion of the recent 50th anniversary of the great nation of Ghana. LIHEDE is a US-based nonprofit Liberian organization with offices in Monrovia and Greensboro, North Carolina, USA, and it comprises Liberians and friends of Liberia dedicated to promoting education and development initiatives in Liberia. One of the focuses of LIHEDE is to vehemently advocate for and promote the control of malaria. As you know this devastating parasite has no boundaries in Africa.
For the last two years, LIHEDE has been spearheading a campaign for malaria prevention, control, and eradication in Liberia, by creating public awareness in Liberia and the U.S., mainly amongst Liberians, about the debilitating effects of malaria on Liberian mothers and children and women and children throughout Africa. Last December, LIHEDE held the first post-war National Malaria Conference in Liberia, in collaboration with governmental and non-governmental organizations, preceded by a malaria control and prevention hosted by Liberia at the North Carolina State Agricultural and Technical University in 2005. The net results of these efforts included creation of a policy document for malaria control and prevention in Liberia, and Liberia’s inclusion on U.S. President George Bush’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), which has funded a number of malaria control efforts in Africa.
However, because malaria control is not just a Liberian problem but an African problem, we believe that the need exists for the hosting of continental conference on malaria control and prevention in Africa. And it is in this context that we wish to appeal to you as Chairman of the African Union to kindly consider the following, particularly for the children of Africa:
1. Bring the malaria issue of the African people to the world’s attention
2. Convene an International Malaria Conference on successful and novel mechanisms for malaria control in Africa including cultural, education and scientific based strategies
3. Establish a permanent AU Commission on Malaria Control with responsibility for continent wide advocacy and regional coordination of malaria control in Africa in collaboration with international organizations such as the WHO, World Bank, Global Funds, the Gates Foundation, USAID, universities, research bureaus, institutes and centers
Your Excellency, by the time you have finished reading this letter, 15 more Africans (mostly women and children) will have died from malaria, a preventable and curable disease that is older than all civilizations. Aggressive interventions resulted in malaria being eradicated in developed nations like the United States, Japan, Germany, Italy, Poland, Panama, Romania, the Caribbean, and today, citizens of these malaria-free nations have longer, better quality lives, and better working conditions, as their nations have prospered. However, Africa has been denied the same opportunities, and the only protection most of our people in malaria endemic areas have is to take foul medications in the hope that they will end the malaria that is wracking their bodies.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and other international health service organizations estimate that some 400 million Africans contract malaria each year, and up to three million die each year as well. Statistics also show that African women are 175 times more likely to die in childbirth and pregnancy than Westerners due to malaria. As a result, 90% of all malaria deaths, mostly children, happen on the African Continent. Africa is currently the only place in the world where a child dies every 30 seconds from a preventable and treatable infectious disease like malaria.
This terrible death toll from malaria is equivalent to sending 27 fully loaded Boeing 757 jetliners crashing into a mountain every single day, year after year. You can see their faces as you read this letter, and your mind can take you to the nightmare of homes, tents, and clinics where women and children shake with fever and convulsions, vomit when there is nothing left in their stomachs, and cry out from the pain and thirst. You can see the hollow eyes and anguished faces of husbands and parents, who must watch helplessly as their loved ones cling to life in the torment of their malaria, lapse into comas and permanent brain damage, or are laid in their graves. The economic effect of malaria is just as tragic, as it costs Africa an estimated $91 billion a year in lost gross domestic product.
Mr. President, we believe that Africa and Africans can contain the malaria scourge afflicting the continent because the technology to kill mosquitoes—the carriers of malaria—and disrupt their life cycle is available, so prompt action should be taken control malaria once and for all. We just need to have in Africa the moral clarity and medical honesty to use the range of malaria-killing technologies on the market today. LIHEDE believes, Mr. President, that we can rely on you and the people of Ghana through the AU to help in the campaign for malaria prevention and control in Liberia, given Ghana’s own standing as one of the early champions of Africa liberation, especially starting with the independence movement if Africa that brought up all African nations from colonial control.
Mr. President, one of the objectives for which we hosted the post-war National Health Conference in Monrovia was to reduce malaria morbidity and mortality by at least 50 percent in 2013, in order to improve health, stability, opportunity, productivity and prosperity in Liberia and neighboring nations. But we in LIHEDE have realized that we cannot defeat malaria selectively in Africa. Malaria control in Africa must take on an integrated regional or continental approach. It is, therefore, against this backdrop that we have come to you to join hand to take African malaria to the world stage because we know your dedicated work and your strong support for our children, our common future. We make this request not only because of your insights about the impact of poverty and disease, including malaria, on poor mothers and children of Africa, but also because you are a Son of Africa with a strong sense of your divine obligation and opportunity to save African children’s lives. Mr. President, when you speak not just Africa hears you but the world listens. Hence, we entertain the hope that our appeal to you will be honored for you to launch a Malaria Awareness and Control Program at the next AU Summit.
Thank you very much for considering our request. We prayerfully look forward to your support for this humanitarian cause aimed at finding a lasting end to malaria pandemic in Africa. A LIHEDE delegation will be prepared to meet with you to explore this matter further. We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Syrulwa Somah, PhD.
Executive Director, LIHEDE
somah@ncat.edu or info@lihede.org