Fighting Malaria

Since 2000, ExxonMobil has worked vigorously to support organizations that combat malaria, donating a total of $40 million to assist health organizations and programs in saving many lives in Africa.

In April, 2004, Exxon Mobil Corporation announced more than $2 million in research and partnership grants to global health organizations to combat malaria in African communities. The grants are to improve treatment, educate citizens, and help prevent the spread of
malaria.

On Africa Malaria Awareness Day in 2007, ExxonMobil announced the awarding of more than $4 million in grants to support efforts in Chad, Angola, Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea to fight malaria and other infectious diseases.

In February, 2008, through its Africa Health Initiative, ExxonMobil announced the launch of the NetsforLife program in Nigeria to help fight malaria. The goal is to distribute one million long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to communities in high-risk areas by the end of the year.  This follows ExxonMobil’s launch of a similar program in Angola in 2007.

Though a curable disease, malaria rates are at an all-time high among the people of Africa, infecting an estimated 300 to 500 million people and causing more than 1 million fatalities annually. The parasitic disease is spread through mosquito bites and has the most severe consequences among pregnant women and children under five years old.  As a leader in the energy industry and partner with local African communities and organizations, ExxonMobil brings its resources to bear to prevent and help control malaria in Africa.

ExxonMobil has long supported programs that address public health issues worldwide, and more recently focused its emphasis on combating malaria in Africa. The programs the company has supported have included:

Bikes for Rukara: The program will provide bicycles to community health workers at the Rukara Health Facility, a faith-based operation in partnership with the government of Rwanda, to help reach more families with their life-saving malaria prevention programs. Bikes for Rukara is part of ExxonMobil’s commitment to supporting organizations working to combat malaria. This program is in partnership with Malaria No More and Project Rwanda.

Roll Back Malaria: Goal is to reduce the global malaria burden by one-half by the year 2010. ExxonMobil words in collaboration with the World Health Organization and host governments in five sub-Saharan countries (Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria) to provide support to the malaria control efforts in these countries.

Harvard Malaria Initiative: Goal is to discover, develop and test new therapies for drug-resistant malaria. It aims at taking full advantage of recent advances in gene technology to find new anti-malaria drugs.

Medical Malaria Ventures: Goal is to bring together public and private partners to fund and manage the discovery and development of new anti-malarial drugs. ExxonMobil is the first industrial partner from outside the pharmaceutical industry.

Organizations that received malaria-related grants include:

• NetsforLife, for distribution of nets to help fight malaria, in both Nigeria and Angola;
  
  
• Academy for Educational Development (AED), to help subsidize the cost of bednets for pregnant women through the USAID-funded NetMark Project and ExxonMobil's retail networks in Ghana and Nigeria;
  
  
• Africare, for malaria prevention and early treatment in Angola;
  
  
• Alliance pour le Developpement de la Sante, to establish a reference center for infectious diseases in Chad;
  
  
• American Red Cross, to support Angola Red Cross to distribute bednets in Angola;
  
  
• Harvard Malaria Initiative, to address the genomics of the African malaria parasite;
  
  
• Medicines for Malaria Ventures, to support accelerated development of antimalarial drugs;
  
  
• Population Services International (PSI), to provide bednets to pregnant women and children under five in Tanzania;
  
  
• Safe Blood for Africa, to help ensure a disease-free blood supply in Nigeria; and
  
  
• UNICEF, to increase the availability and use of bed nets by pregnant women and children under five years of age in Cameroon.