Tomorrow (25th April) is World Malaria Day, a day the World Gold Council has often marked as a consequence of the important link between its member companies and the fight against the disease.
Many gold miners operate in parts of the world impacted by malaria, and several of those run significant healthcare programmes focused on tackling the disease head-on. Back in 2013 the WGC shone a spotlight on Ghana, where member companies such as Newmont and AngloGold Ashanti make broad-ranging malaria education and healthcare provision available to their employees, their families and the wider community.
The AngloGold Ashanti programme was particularly wide-ranging, and has become widely known as the ‘Obuasi Model’ which relies on carefully managed indoor residual spraying (which is a powerful way to rapidly reduce malaria transmission) and the availability of good quality treatments and diagnostics (many of which contain gold, as we have highlighted recently). The original programme worked so well in the town of Obuasi the company received a $130m Global Fund grant to scale it up to the rest of the country; indeed AGAMal (the independent company started by AngloGold Ashanti to manage the grant) continues this important work to this day.
However, recent years have seen the battle become increasingly challenging. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), progress in tackling cases (and resulting deaths) has slowed and stabilised at ‘an unacceptably high level’.1 Climate change is also impacting the fight against malaria; End Malaria and WHO have also highlighted the increasing threat of climate change to the progress made against malaria in recent years.2 Indeed, AGAMal has noted unseasonably high temperatures and late rains in Obuasi itself has started to see the need for additional costly fumigation to keep the mosquitoes at bay.3 Finally, and perhaps most immediately critical, is the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential this virus has to derail many malaria programmes around the world. WHO has recognised this threat, specifically urging countries to ensure the continuity of malaria services.4
World Malaria Day 2020 is undoubtedly the most difficult of recent years, but these challenges make the ongoing efforts of the gold industry even more important in the ongoing fight against this deadly disease.
