The results of the Measles Campaign are far beyond expectations. The initial goal was to halve the death toll from measles. No deaths from measles have occurred in 13 of the 14 countries covered by the campaigns. The results far surpass what was thought possible.

Measles Initiative

From the web page, www.measlesinitiative.org, we learn "The Measles Initiative is led by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, and United Nations Children's Fund. Other key players in the fight against measles include the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and countries and governments affected by measles."

All those organizations are active in malaria control also, plus Rotarians Against Malaria, RAM. RAM takes its inspiration from the Rotary International PolioPlus program for the eradication of polio. In the early polio efforts, individual Rotarians, Rotary Clubs and Districts from around the world banded together. Over the last decade the Rotarians have banded together to work actively to control malaria. While not an official program of Rotary International, RAM enjoys generous and ongoing support of the Rotary International Foundation and Rotary Connections around the world.

In 1998 the World Health Organization, UNICEF (UN's Children's Fund), the World Bank and UNDP (UN's Development Programme) formed Roll Back Malaria. The RBM Partners include many of the participants in the Polio campaign: governments, educational institutions, private industry and non-governmental organizations from around the world. In the past 4 years these many Roll Back Malaria partners have laid the immense political, policy, technical and other groundwork needed to address malaria quickly and efficiently.

The Measles Initiative explicitly claims Rotary origin for its campaign. From the website we learn the Measles Initiative is designed 'using the Rotary model that helped fight polio…. In 1985 Rotary International launched PolioPlus, a 20-year commitment to eradicate polio…." Additionally, the Measles Initiative adds local empowerment to the Rotary Method. The Malaria Campaign may be viewed as descending from both Polio and Measles Campaigns.

The results of the Measles Campaign are far beyond expectations. The initial goal was to halve the death toll from measles. No deaths from measles have occurred in 13 of the 14 countries covered by the campaigns. The results far surpass what was thought possible. The campaign has saved hundreds of thousands of lives already. More than a million lives will be saved by the Measles campaign in a few short years.

Similar to polio back in the 1980's, measles is not now eradicable, at least not yet. Unlike polio and measles, malaria does not even have a vaccine yet. Several possible vaccines are being developed. Like measles, malaria can be dramatically reduced using a few simple tools.

Like measles, research points to the ability to reduce sickness and deaths dramatically through an organized campaign. The initial goal is to halve the deaths from malaria within 3 years.