4/C PRoCESS gloSSy lAMINATIoN + SPoT gRITTy uv Alex Perry medicine/economics $25.99/$30.00 CAN is Time’s Africa bureau “ A fascinating account of that lamentably rare phenomenon—a chief, covering forty-eight successful aid programme.” —Peter Godwin, author of i In 2006, the Wall Street pioneer and philan- The Fear: The Last Days of Robert Mugabe countries in sub-Saharan o thropist Ray Chambers flicked through some g u ER H Africa. From 2002 to 2006, “ Alex Perry shows a reporter’s eye and a writer’s art to chart a holiday snapshots taken by his friend, devel- ET he was South Asia bureau revolution not just in the fight against malaria but in the global PI opment economist Jeffrey Sachs, and remarked provision of aid. Anybody interested in how the world can realisti- chief, based in New Delhi, covering Afghanistan cally be made a better place should read this fantastic book.” on the placid beauty of a group of sleeping Mala- to Bangladesh. He joined Time as a staff writer —tim butcher, author of Blood River: A Journey wian children. “They’re not sleeping,” Sachs told to Africa’s Broken Heart and travel editor in Hong Kong in February 2001. him. “They’re in malarial comas.” A few days later, His journalism has won numerous awards. His “ With this book, Alex Perry confirms his reputation as one of the they were all dead. twenty Time cover stories have ranged from finest journalists working in Africa today. Lifeblood is intrepid, So began Chambers’s quest to rid the planet engaging, incisive, and immensely readable.”—mArk Gevisser, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Asian tsunami, and the author of Thabo Mbeki: A Dream Deferred   of a disease that has plagued humanity since Kashmir quake to hunger in Ethiopia, South before medicine. Award-winning journalist Alex Africa’s 2009 elections, South Africa’s 2010 World “ Lifeblood is a sweeping epic of a book. With graphic and chilling Perry obtained unique access to Chambers to detail.… Perry shows us both the horrors of this lethal disease Cup, Zimbabwe, the illegal Africa-to-Asia trade and that it can be beaten. This is imperative reading for anyone document the remarkable story of a global cam- in rhino horn, Asia’s child slave trade, and Ban- involved in health or international development.” paign of unprecedented ambition. By replacing gladesh’s emergence from terror and poverty. —humPhrey hAwksley, bbc foreign correspondent and traditional aid with business acumen and hustle, author of Democracy Kills: What’s So Good About Having the Vote? He is the author of Falling Off the Edge: Glo- Chambers saved millions of lives and upturned balization, World Peace and Other Lies (2009). “ Alex Perry has written a hugely compelling account of one of current notions of assistance, forging a new path the epic public health battles of our time. Lifeblood is brightly He lives in Cape Town with his wife and three illuminated by startling details from the author’s research. It is for the developing world, global business, and daughters. also refreshingly free of the clichés that mar so much writing the aid industry. In Lifeblood, Perry weaves by Europeans about Africa.” —Alec russell, comment and together science and history with on-the-ground analysis editor of the Financial Times and author of JACKET DESIgN By PETE gARCEAu Bring Me My Machine Gun reporting and a riveting exposé of aid to record JACKET PHoTogRAPH © gETTy IMAgES a rare humanitarian triumph, one with profound implications for how to build a better world. $25.99/$30.00 CAN AvAIlABlE AS AN E-BooK vISIT WWW.PuBlICAFFAIRSBooKS.CoM FolloW uS oN TWITTER www.PublicAffAirsbooks.com SPoT gRITTy INDICATED oN PAgE 2 1610390866-Perry_Design 7/6/11 8:29 AM Page i In 2006, Wall Street wizard and philanthropist Ray Chambers flicked through some holiday snapshots taken by his friend, development economist Jeffrey Sachs, and remarked on the placid beauty of a group of sleeping Malawian children. “They’re not sleeping,”Sachs told Chambers. L i f e b l o o d “They’re in malarious comas.”A few days later, they were all dead. So begins Chambers’s race to eradicate a disease that has haunted humankind since Hippocrates, still infects half a billion people a year, and kills a million of them. The campaign draws in presidents, celebrities, scientists, and billions of dollars and becomes a stunning success, saving millions of lives and propelling Africa toward prosperity. By drawing heavily on business, Chambers also reinvents foreign aid, showing how helping can be both efficient and in all our interests. As he follows two years of the campaign, award- winning journalist Alex Perry takes the reader across the globe, from a terrifying visit to the most malarious town on earth to the White House, from the forests of the Democratic Republic of Congo to soccer’s World Cup. In Lifeblood, Perry weaves together science and history with on-the-ground reporting and a searing exposé of aid as he documents Chambers’s frenetic campaign. The result is an incisive and often surprising portrait of modern Africa, a story of revolution in aid and development, and a thrilling and all-too-rare tale of humanitarian triumph, with profound implications for how to build a better world. 1610390866-Perry_Design 7/6/11 8:29 AM Page ii 1610390866-Perry_Design 7/6/11 8:29 AM Page iii L i f e b l o o d How to Change the World One Dead Mosquito at a Time A L E X P E R R Y New York 1610390866-Perry_Design 7/6/11 8:29 AM Page iv Copyright © 2011 by Alex Perry First published in the United Kingdom in 2011 by C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd. Published in the United States in 2011 by PublicAffairs™, a Member of the Perseus Books Group All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1321, New York, NY 10107. PublicAffairs books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the US by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected]. Book design by Brent Wilcox Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Perry, Alex. Lifeblood : how to change the world, one dead mosquito at a time / Alex Perry.—1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61039-086-6 (hardback : alk. paper)— ISBN 978-1-61039-087-3 (e-book) 1. Malaria— Prevention—Africa. 2. Epidemics—Africa. 3. International cooperation—Africa. I. Title. RA644.M2P47 2011 614.5'32—dc23 2011024350 First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1610390866-Perry_Design 7/6/11 8:29 AM Page v For Tess 1610390866-Perry_Design 7/6/11 8:29 AM Page vi They sprayed and sprayed till their eyes got sore Then they refilled their machines and sprayed some more. They worked most of the whole night through. Killing mosquitoes for me and for you. Their labors resulted in great success. Of every one hundred mosquitoes, there were ninety-nine less. But they were mocked and they were scorned, Their heads with criticism were adorned. What could be the problem then? That such reward befell these men? This answer is simple as numbers can be. And the calculations reveal for all to see. That if ninety-nine percent of one billion are slain. Ten million of the devils still remain. —Matt Yates President, American Mosquito Control Association 1610390866-Perry_Design 7/6/11 8:29 AM Page vii C o n t e n t s MALARIA MAP OF THE WORLD viii PREFACE ix 1 Great Lake of Disease 1 2 Original Sickness 14 3 The Selfish Philanthropist 31 4 Aiding Who? 48 5 The Business of Caring 64 6 Levers of Power 82 7 Global Network 101 8 Gil and Belinda 115 9 A Big Player 129 10 Committed 143 11 The Heart of Illness 157 12 Buzz 164 13 Trade Not Aid 170 14 Countless 183 15 Fine and Fair 203 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 211 NOTES 215 INDEX 231 | vii 1610390866-Perry_Design 7/6/11 8:29 AM Page viii ntion © WHO 2010. All rights reserved e v e pr d n a elimination, elimination Certified malaria-free and/or no ongoing local transmission for over a decade Prevention of reintroduction Elimination Pre-elimination Control Data Source: World Malaria Report 2009 e- pr Malaria-free countries and malaria-endemic countries in phase of control*, of reintroduction, end 2008 * China, Indonesia,Philippines, SolomonIslands, Sudan, Vanu-atu and Yemen have Localized malaria-freeprojects The boundaries and names shown and the designations used on this map do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the World Health Organization concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Dotted lines on maps represent approximate border lines for which there may not yet be full agreement. This map is inteneded as a visual aid only and not as a definitive source of information about malaria endemicity. 1610390866-Perry_Design 7/6/11 8:29 AM Page ix P r e f a c e Does aid work? As a journalist working in the developing world— for three years in the Far East, five years in India, and now four more in Africa—I spend a lot of time trying to answer that ques- tion, and many hours sifting press releases from aid groups claim- ing heroic progress. I first heard about the malaria campaign in the usual way: an April 2009 email from a London PR executive, Rebecca Ladbury, asking whether I would be interested in writing about the launch of a new charity, Malaria No More UK. Lad- bury explained the group had been jointly founded by “Wall Street pioneer Ray Chambers, now UN Special Envoy for Malaria” and Peter Chernin, then president of News Corporation. Chambers and Chernin had “decided to apply their private sector expertise and considerable networks to tackle the world’s biggest solvable health crisis.” After founding Malaria No More in the United States in 2006, they were broadening their scope, launching a British branch at a conference, held at Wilton Park in southern England, on malaria and efforts to fight it. The event was bring- ing together experts on the disease from all over the world. | ix