ExxonMobil Marks World Malaria Day With $10 Mln Grant

ExxonMobil marked World Malaria Day yesterday by participating in events across Africa and announcing more than $10 million in new grants to support life saving
programs across Africa and in the Pacific Rim, where the disease is a major threat to health and economic development. The grants from ExxonMobil and the ExxonMobil Foundation will support a wide range of research, advocacy, treatment and prevention programs to accelerate progress in the fight against malaria, which still claims more than 627,000 lives each year, mostly children under the age of five.

In addition to funding, ExxonMobil provides business expertise and insights to help strengthen these initiatives. ExxonMobil has been committed to fighting malaria for more than a decade, and has provided more than $120 million to programs that are helping more than 105 million people. The new grants build on the company’s support for innovative programs to control and one day eliminate deaths from this preventable and treatable disease.
 

To mark World Malaria Day, ExxonMobil is participating in events across Africa – including the launch of Malaria No More’s award-winning NightWatch campaign in Nigeria, La Coalition de la Communauté des Affaires Contre le Sida, la Tuberculose et le Paludisme’s Malaria March in Cameroon and CORE Group’s Malaria Day play in Angola. Through events such as these, combined with advocacy and education efforts, ExxonMobil aims to increase awareness and progress in the fight against malaria in the communities in which it works.

“We have seen firsthand how the lives of ExxonMobil workers, families and communities are directly harmed by malaria – and improved by the efforts of our partners on the front line fighting this disease,” said Suzanne McCarron, president of the ExxonMobil Foundation. “Together, we are investing in sustainable solutions to help people live a healthy life without the burden of malaria.”

Unprecedented commitment from the global community in the past decade has led to a 45 percent reduction in malaria mortality worldwide since 2000. Yet the disease is still a leading cause of death among children. Beyond lives lost, the disease costs sub-Saharan Africa billions of dollars in lost gross domestic product and accounts for as much as 40 percent of public health expenditures in some countries.

"The private sector has a crucial role to play in defeating malaria and alleviating poverty,” said Dr. Fatoumata Nafo-Traoré, Executive Director of Roll Back Malaria Partnership. “The engagement of ExxonMobil shows how public-private partnerships provide the resources, knowledge and expertise that drives progress in the global fight against malaria, which in turn drives development.”

ExxonMobil’s grants will help drive a comprehensive response to the disease that generates deeper impact in local communities and around the world. Highlights of ExxonMobil’s 2014 malaria grantees include:
 

Grassroot Soccer to use the convening power of soccer to educate and mobilize youth in Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania to protect themselves and their communities from malaria.

Seed Global Health to place U.S. medical volunteers in tropical disease settings to help train the next generation of health care professionals.
 

Harvard Malaria Initiative to support Dr. Regina Rabinovich as the ExxonMobil Malaria Scholar-in-Residence at the Harvard School of Public Health, where she is advancing innovative strategies to combat malaria. ExxonMobil is also supporting a leadership development course for emerging malaria leaders from developing countries.

Cameroon’s Business Coalition against Malaria, Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS to strengthen coordination between the private-sector response to malaria and other serious diseases.

Norwegian Red Cross to conduct a low-cost mobile phone malaria survey on use of bed nets, diagnostics and approved malaria treatments in affected communities in West Africa.

PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) to educate and train African health officials and opinion leaders to advocate for effective implementation policies in advance of the potential 2015 introduction of the first vaccine to protect against the disease.

ExxonMobil is one of the leading private-sector investors in malaria. Its Workforce Malaria Control Program offers prevention tools, early diagnosis and treatment to company employees and surrounding communities. Since 2000, ExxonMobil’s partnerships have helped distribute 13.1 million bed nets, administer 1.9 million malaria treatment doses and train more than 355,000 health workers and counselors working on the front lines of malaria prevention and control.

ExxonMobil’s other 2014 malaria grant recipients include Accordia Global Health Foundation, Africare, Global Health Corps, Jhpiego, UN Foundation