June's shared offering is the Schistosomiasis
Control Initiative, also known as SCI. In 2002, the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation gave 20 million pounds (SCI is based in the United Kingdom) to
establish SCI at Imperial College London. The award has been directed to
delivering treatment for schistosomiasis and intestinal worms to millions of
sub-Saharan Africans at high risk for serious disease. It now works to treat
seven neglected tropical diseases. In 2013, SCI distributed its 100 millionth
treatment for schistosomiasis.
Schistosomiasis has been mentioned a few times now,
and it would be helpful to explain what it is. Sparing the most unpleasant
details, it is a disease, also known as bilharzia or snail fever, which is
caused by several species of parasitic worms that live and breed in the blood
vessels of humans. The worms cause malnutrition, anemia, infertility, and
long-term problems in the bladder and liver. It is also the most deadly
neglected tropical disease, with an overall impact second only to malaria. It
is estimated to extinguish the lives of between 12,000 and 200,000 people every
year. To bring those numbers home, that’s somewhere between the population of
Rantoul and the whole of Champaign County dying every year. Every year; and it debilitates far more.
There are many charities and nonprofits that work to
manage diseases, so why does SCI stand apart from these other admirable
organizations? SCI has developed a very efficient and cost-effective delivery
system for five drugs used to treat seven separate neglected tropical diseases.
Doses are deployed in school-based settings, where communities already
congregate. Givewell, a stellar charity research and rating agency that
thoroughly investigates charities, estimates it costs approximately $1.23 to
administer a one treatment... or to put it a different way, parking on campus
for just under an hour and 14 minutes.
Today and for the rest of this month you have a
tremendous power. You could fund a life-saving treatment for a human being with
your pocket change. Please give generously.
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