Something Extraordinary

BHP Billiton, in the words of a New York Times editorial, "did something extraordinary". What did BHP Billiton do? Orchestrate the overthrow of an unfriendly government? Doom hundreds of workers to an untimely death due to known but unrevealed work-place hazards? Secretly dump radioactive waste disguised as glow-in-the-dark children's novelties? Okay, they've probably done all of those things and more, but they're also participating in a very effective anti-malaria project in Africa:

In 1998, the Australia-based mining company BHP Billiton began building a huge aluminum smelter outside Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. The company knew that malaria plagued the region. It gave all its workers mosquito nets and free medicine, and sprayed the construction site and workers' houses with insecticide. Nevertheless, during the first two years of construction there were 6,000 cases of malaria, and at least 13 contractors died.

To deal with the problem, the company did something extraordinary. It joined an effort by South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland to eradicate malaria in a swath of the three countries measuring more than 40,000 square miles. The project is called the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative, after the mountains that define the region. In the three years since house-to-house insecticide spraying, surveillance and state-of-the-art treatment began, malaria incidence dropped in one South African province by 96 percent. In the area around the aluminum smelter, 76 percent fewer children now carry the malaria parasite. The Lubombo initiative is probably the best antimalaria program in the world, an example for other countries that rolling back malaria is possible and cost-effective.

Funny, the United Nations doesn't get a mention in an editorial on "probably the best antimalaria program in the world". Wonder why?


Update: A Medical Research Council of South Africa press release on the project is here. The Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative Malaria Control Programme homepage is here.