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Context
 Peace Corps Volunteers in all regions of Senegal are leading efforts to prevent malaria, the leading cause of child mortality in Senegal. Volunteers are providing malaria prevention education and have led insecticide treated mosquito bed nets distribution campaigns that have become a model for the rest of Senegal. These efforts are leading to the first large scale universal bed net coverage in the history of Senegal, aiming to significantly reduce malaria caused disease and deaths.
Nearly a million children a year die of malaria, nearly 90% of them in sub-Saharan Africa. In Senegal, malaria has long been the leading killer of young children, is often deadly to pregnant mothers, and is a tremendous drag on health and productivity for the entire society.
 Peace Corps Senegal is working to combat malaria by working closely with several key partners including the Government of Senegal’s National Malaria Campaign, USAID and the President’s Malaria Initiative, and the non-governmental organizations Against Malaria, Malaria No More, Youssou Ndour Foundation, Tostan, World Vision, NetLife and others.
Our vision is a long-lasting insecticide-treated net over every bed in Senegal. Studies show that this universal coverage is much more effective in reducing the endemic nature of malaria than piecemeal solutions. Our aim is to cut off the supply of infected blood to the mosquitoes, eliminating their ability to keep spreading the disease.
Recognition of our malaria prevention work:
Anderson Cooper's CNN Blog
Malaria No More Blog
The Approach
 As a result of efforts in 2009-10 of Peace Corps Senegal Volunteers and their partners, for the first time ever, an entire Health District in Senegal (District of Saraya in the south-eastern Region of Kedougou) received comprehensive malaria prevention education and universal bed net coverage: every man, woman and child can now safely sleep under a mosquito net. A village-by-village follow up campaign is ensuring continued success in stopping the disease.
Following on the success of the Saraya campaign, Peace Corps/Senegal partnered in 2010 with the NGOs Malaria No More, Tostan and World Vision, along with the government of Senegal, to provide universal bed net coverage, coupled with widespread public education on malaria prevention, in the District of Velingara. The effort in Velingara, 5 times the population of Saraya, demonstrated that our distribution and education methodologies could be scaled up and replicated.
Now, the government of Senegal and the President’s Malaria Initiative have adopted the Peace Corps distribution approach and are supporting 2010 universal coverage efforts in the 4 regions of Senegal with the highest levels of malaria: Kedougou, Kolda, Sediou, and Tambacounda. Volunteers will be deeply integrated in these campaigns and in future campaigns to provide universal coverage of bed nets across Senegal. As much as the net distributions themselves, Volunteers are focused on using their tremendous local language skills and deep cultural integration and trust to conduct effective pre-distribution educational outreach activities, help ensure that delivered nets are actually used, and to evaluate impact through post-distribution compound-to-compound assessments.
Materials
Results
A malaria prevention campaign in 20 villages in the Dimboli area of the Region of Kedougou, which included deep educational outreach and universal bed net coverage in 2008, was a great success. The distribution was conducted mid-way through the rainy season. In the months immediately before the distribution 3 children had died of malaria in these communities; since the distribution no children have died of malaria and severe cases reported to the health post have dropped by more than half. We are working toward similar results in all the communities touched by our more recent efforts.
Over the course of 2010, we will be gathering and analyzing data about the changes in malaria morbidity and mortality in all the regions where Volunteers have supported bed net distributions and education campaigns.
Next Steps
 After distributions are complete, a post-distribution assessment is conducted to measure and encourage usage. We will work with local health officials to conduct month by month and year over year analyses of malaria mortality and morbidity in all these communities.
During the 2010 rainy season and beyond, we will continue to expand our efforts to help achieve universal bed net coverage in more of Senegal, hopefully saving the lives of many men, women and children where malaria hits hardest.
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