Sarah Kline: How we can kick out malaria

Football and malaria. On the surface, there are no obvious commonalities, yet both affect millions of lives worldwide. Football captivates and connects mass audiences across the globe while malaria is one of the world's most deadly diseases, threatening half the world's population and claiming almost a million lives every year.

If we are to defeat malaria, we need a global movement to do so and by harnessing football, we can dramatically scale up our potential audience and impact.

The launch of Malaria No More UK on 20 April was fronted by David Beckham, Andy Murray and Denise Lewis. These three British sporting heroes are the founding members of the Charity's Leadership Council and their support has already helped raise the profile of malaria using both traditional and new media, with launch coverage, including virals, blogs and Tweets, reaching an estimated 200 million people.

Malaria No More UK continues to work with these sports personalities to create new angles for popular media to educate and inspire the British public, businesses and politicians in the fight to end malaria. Tonight's Champions League Final Match between FC Barcelona and Manchester United FC is no exception. It offers an unprecedented opportunity to reach a mass audience with the good news message that malaria can be defeated.

Sky has chosen Malaria No More UK to be the recipient charity of its Red Button Campaign. This means viewers following the match build up on Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports HD1 will be able to press their red button to learn more about malaria and save lives when they donate to Malaria No More UK. Every penny donated online by the public will be used to invest in malaria control programmes with the focus on live-saving mosquito nets.

Sky has also been promoting Malaria No More UK with a TV advert on Sky Sports featuring David Beckham. The advert sees Beckham kicking a penalty into a net less goal to highlight the urgent need for mosquito nets as a tool to help prevent spread of malaria in Africa.

Africa is where 90 per cent of the world's malaria deaths occur. Malaria kills one child in Africa every 30 seconds, it kills more children under five than any other single disease. It is a truly terrible statistic, and particularly so because out of all of the world's biggest killer diseases, malaria is entirely preventable and treatable. A £5 net will protect a mother and her child in Africa for up to five years and in recent years, countries including Rwanda, Ethiopia and Eritrea have successfully used mosquito nets, insecticides and access to medicines to cut malaria deaths by over 50 per cent.

Malaria No More UK supports the UN's Millennium Development Goals with ambitious milestones to end malaria. The two key goals are firstly to have every man, women and child at risk of malaria covered with a mosquito net by the end of 2010; and secondly to achieve near-zero deaths from malaria by 2015.

The Charity will be working to reach these goals using a powerful blend of public fundraising, corporate partnerships and advocacy. Governments will be held to account on their commitments to fight malaria; in the UK, PM Brown pledged 20 million mosquito nets and the EU and G8 governments promised a total of 100 million mosquito nets, all by the end of 2010. The spotlight will also be shone on global leaders to ensure they fulfill funding commitments of $3.2 billion to tackling malaria, made at the UN high level event on the Millennium Development Goals in September 2008.

Ghana is the first priority country for support from Malaria No More UK. It is a country where the entire population is at risk from malaria and I witnessed the far reaching impact of the disease during a visit earlier this year. I visited hospital wards filled with tiny children suffering from malaria and met numerous families who had lost children to the deadly disease. But I also saw what a difference something as simple as a mosquito net can make. I visited a village where the chief fines anyone who does not use a mosquito net. Although the people there were extremely poor, they were using their nets, and no child had died of malaria in the past 3 years as a result. To blanket Ghana with mosquito nets, an estimated additional 3.8 million nets are required and a further 4 million need to be re-treated.

We also spent time with Michael Essien's mother. Michael, a prominent footballer in Ghana and Chelsea striker, suffered with malaria twice as a child and today he and his mother campaign to increase awareness of malaria in Ghana. His mother told us about the preparations they make each time Michael returns home to make sure he is protected from catching the disease again and how Michael's fame has helped spread the message about malaria in Ghana.

We know we have knowledge and tools to defeat malaria. I hope 2009 will mark the moment to raise the issue to a new level and in partnership with the world's most popular sports and greatest players we will accelerate making malaria no more.

* 'Malaria No More UK' has been chosen by Sky as the recipient organisation for the Sky Red Button Campaign during the UEFA Champions League Final between Barcelona and Manchester United, to be shown live on Sky Sports tonight.

malarianomore.org.uk