Radio 4 Appeal
BBC Radio 4 Appeal To Highlight The Global Malaria Crisis
Our Special Ambassador Jo Yirrell knows the agony of losing a child. She will share her moving story in a BBC Radio 4 Appeal.
As the world grapples with another global health emergency, she implores us not to forget malaria.
Jo lost her son Harry to malaria when he was only 20. He’d spent some of the happiest months of his life volunteering at a school in rural Ghana but had given his antimalarial tablets away to some pupils.
This kind-hearted gesture was to cost Harry his life. Not long after returning home, he developed a fever and spent ten days in intensive care fighting for his life. “The night he died,” Jo says, “was the worst night of my life.”
After Harry’s death, Jo started to learn more about the deadly disease that took Harry from her and was shocked by the statistics. In a BBC Radio 4 Appeal to be broadcast shortly after World Malaria Day, she will highlight the stark fact that every two minutes, somewhere in the world, another child dies from malaria.
A life-saving vaccine
In Ghana and many other African countries, it’s children and pregnant women who are most at risk. But incredible progress has been made in the past decade thanks to better bed nets, drugs and improved health services. Best of all is the news that the world’s first malaria vaccine - currently being piloted in Ghana, Malawi and Kenya - is already saving lives.
Eight-month-old baby girl Rejoice is just one of hundreds of thousands of children benefiting from the vaccine. Her mother Augustine was eager for her youngest daughter to be vaccinated because her son has been suffering from malaria for four years and often has to miss school. “I think that every child in Ghana should be offered the vaccine,” says Augustine. “No child should ever die from malaria.”
We know that when pandemics hit malaria-affected countries, deaths can rise even higher so it’s crucial that the progress made to date isn’t lost during the current coronavirus crisis. Please do consider donating to Jo’s appeal which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 26 April at 7.54am and 9.25pm, and again on Thursday 30 April at 3.27pm.
For the first £15,000 raised, our long-term supporter Fever-Tree will give £2 for every £1 donated, meaning that the value of your gift can be tripled. Do tune in to hear Jo’s story.