Hedge funds do business against malaria

When Lance Laifer, a hedge fund manager in New Jersey and former Internet entrepreneur, started researching malaria two and a half years ago, a prominent professor with a medical background told him that doctors were not drawn to malaria research because it was a disease of logistics. "Doctors don't do logistics," he said. "Business does logistics."

So Mr. Laifer set out to make malaria a priority for hedge funds, businesses, governments and individuals, creating an advocacy group known as Hedge Funds Vs. Malaria, and using various innovative ideas to raise awareness and set up programs to treat or start to prevent malaria. He has raised more than $1 million to fight malaria, single-handedly making investors in New York aware that they could take action to deal with malaria’s death toll of one to three million people each year - the equivalent of seven jumbo jets filled mostly with women and children per day.

Mr. Laifer has inspired people to fast against malaria and to dunk basketballs around the world, using any net available. He recently began a Facebook campaign called "One Million Faces Against Malaria," trying to show what one million people look like, since at least that many people die every year of malaria. He has also worked with doctors and economists to build health clinics in Africa, create 11 malaria-free zones and develop programs to train child soldiers to become child doctors.

Last year, he and the British charity Against Malaria started Madness Against Malaria, echoing the NCAA basketball tournament called March Madness. For the inaugural tournament, 168 teams registered and faced off against each other for six weeks to see who could raise the most money for bed nets; in the end, more than $104,000 was generated to buy approximately 20,000 insecticide-treated bed nets.

Malaria No More, a nongovernmental organization focused on educating the private sector, estimates that financing for the fight against malaria is up 300 percent in the last three years, to $2 billion.

Although he started a malaria advocacy group, Mr. Laifer decided not to set up his own registered charity. Instead, he has focused his efforts on other nonprofits. "We're all one team against the mosquitoes."

Hedge fund managers, an impassioned and results-oriented species, are one channel. So are businesses. Mr. Laifer wants to see which business will own the idea of wiping out malaria: "The blessing of malaria is that it's easy to attack logistically — it's not about the science. It's about: do you have the willpower to save three million lives every year?"

Adapted from a story entitled “Fighting a Disease of Logistics, He Means Business” by Jenny Andeson, published 13 Nov 2007 in the New York Times, and found on the site of Africa Fighting Malaria, a non-profit health advocacy group based in South Africa and the US whose mission is to make malaria control more transparent, responsive and effective. AFM strives to hold public institutions accountable for funding and implementing effective, integrated and country-driven malaria control policies and to promote successful private sector initiatives to control the disease.

For other stories about malaria, see:

Mapping malaria risk in Africa leads to more effective malaria control

Cross-border cooperation reduces malaria risk in southern Africa

Malaria Vaccine Initiative works to provide hope for saving lives

Sri Lanka is close to eliminating malaria as a deadly scourge

Ground-breaking malaria findings may aid drug, vaccine development

MalariaEngage hopes social networking will bring funds to African researchers