This time between Christmas and Twelfth Night, when the three kings arrived at the stable, is a good time to think about my love of Amahl and the Night Visitors, an operetta by Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti. In the story, the three kings stop for the night at the house of a poor single […]
malaria
Malaria causes more deaths in sub-Saharan Africa than car accidents, cancer, AIDS or war, even though the disease can be easily cured with an inexpensive pill. I find that fact incredibly disturbing, so I’ve traveled to Africa multiple times to write about this problem. But honestly, I mainly go to Africa because I like it. […]
A few weeks ago I read the November 2011 newsletter of Roll Back Malaria – a partnership sponsored by the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the World Bank. It contained the following headline: “Nearly a third of all malaria affected countries on course for elimination over the next decade.” I’m not saying the […]
Seldom has something so tiny and so unprepossessing exacted such an immense toll of human misery. Plasmodium falciparum, the protozoa that causes the most serious form of malaria, looks like a little red comma or pear-shaped stain on the surface of a red blood cell. Yet make no mistake, this tiny protozoa is a deft […]