I contracted malaria 4 times during the 4 years I lived and worked in Africa (Liberia & Cameroon) in the 70s and 80s. Not because I was noncompliant with my antimalarial medication, but instead, the malarial parasite mutated causing the medication to become ineffective and drug resisitant. During that period, 60% of the Liberian children died before the age of 5, and ~80% of those deaths were from malaria.
I survived my malarial illnesses because I recieved quick treatment. However, this is not the case for most living in these infested areas. 600,000 people die worldwide each year from this preventable mosquito-borne disease. The parasite, the size of a grape seed, is the biggest disease killer in humans. Check out NOVA’s PBS 2023 special called, The Battle to Beat Malaria.
In 2021 I wrote a post about a vaccine that was developed called R21. The offical rollout of a similar vaccine called RTS,S started in 2024 in the country of Cameroon, where I lived in the early 80s. Check out this article of a Malarial Game Changer that can save hundreds of thousands of lives.
Above are the first two Cameroonian children to be vaccinated in 2024
Currently, this vaccine is offered free to the nations with the highest rate of disease. We are in desperate need of good news for the world and mankind. And today we have it. Check out this video for more information.
Your comment/reply below is welcomed.
Susan E. Greisen 
Thanks And wishing to corporate with your humanitarian aid Liberia.
From: CEO. Dr. Mosoka p. Fallah
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From: Community Based Initiative CBI-Liberia
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Hello, thanks for writing. Can you tell me more about this initiative?
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Thank you for writing Dr. Fallah. The final video listed the upcoming African countries on the future list. I am hoping Liberia will soon be next in line. So many children under the age of 5 died in my village of Zorgowee, Liberia in 1971-73. In most of the cases the etiology was unknown. Despite the challenges Liberia has had in the past 50 years, the health care is gradually improving. This vaccination will give these children another great boost.
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Susan,
Your passion for continuing to promote health care worldwide is remarkable, especially for children; it is enduring and an outgrowth of your Peace Corps service.
As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia during the same period, I too endured malaria, again not from following the normal medical protocol.
The tropics tend to be a tremendous environment for many nasty diseases and infections compared to temperate regions.
Kiwanis International (an international organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time), together with UNICEF, undertook a multi-year, multi-national effort to stem maternal neo-natal tetanus (MNT) in Liberia and over 50 other developing countries. Kiwanians raised $110 million dollars for UNICEF to vaccinate women of childbearing age against tetanus to protect newborns from an agonizing death should the mother have tetanus. As a PCV, I had no knowledge of how devastating tetanus could be on infant mortality. As an active Kiwanian, it is rewarding to know we can still make a difference in the world after Peace Corps service.
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Hello Randy,
You always add so much with your comments and I appreciate it. You highlighted how Peace Corps volunteers, and others who served abroad, continute to give in what is called the “third goal.” Regarding tetnus, I witnessed, first hand, how infants aquire the disease when I observed my first country delivery in my village. How can a newborn survive when the country midwife cut the umbilical cord with a rusty pocket knife and tied it with twine from the ground? Survival of the fittest, maybe. But, remarkably, the infant lived. There is so much we can do with knowledge and funding that is directed to the proper care.
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