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Adventurous river expedition will showcase malaria fight in six African countries

3 Mar 2008

Joao Souza

Source: Roll Back Malaria Partnership (see original article)

The Zambezi river crosses six Southern African countries

Legendary Scottish explorer David Livingstone would certainly have been proud of the international team taking part in the Roll Back Malaria Zambezi Expedition, which aims publicise the struggle against malaria. The expedition, which includes malaria specialists and physicians, will also treat people who live along the river banks and distribute mosquito nets.

Livingstone was the first known European to navigate Africa’s mighty Zambezi River and to unveil its mysteries and marvels, which include the massive Victoria Falls. Scheduled to begin on 29 March 2008, the current eight-week expedition – sponsored by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and with the support of other partners – will experience the challenges of delivering prevention and treatment tools, while sailing 2,500 km down the Zambezi. Using special inflatable boats with fibreglass bottoms, the expedition will pass through six African malaria endemic countries: Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.

Sustainability, however, is an important criterion for the success of the project. Follow-up visits to the communities along the river are therefore planned by the participating NGOs.

The expedition, also called “The River of Life”, is planning to reach the Victoria Falls and the city of Livingstone, in Zambia, on 25 April 2008, to commemorate World Malaria Day.

TropIKA interviewed two of the organisers of the expedition.

Leemann and Bendl: in the footsteps of Livingstone

“Mr. Bendl and Mr Leemann, I presume?”

Helge Bendl, one of the expedition coordinators is a 28 years-old German, award-winning journalist, recognised by CNN for his excellence in foreign reporting. Andy Leemann, is a 53 years-old Swiss boating expert, who has led previous 20,000 km river expeditions on the Amazon, Orinoco and Mekong.

TropIKA: Have you ever experienced such a huge river expedition before?

Helge Bendl: In 2005, I joined an expedition on the Mekong River in Southeast Asia as a reporter in order to produce a documentary film and a number of articles about this venture. The expedition had been organised by Andy Leemann, a boating expert from Switzerland, who had already travelled the Amazon and the Orinoco. This expedition was not a health project, but travelling from Vietnam to China (more than 3,000 kilometers upriver) in the footsteps of a French expedition that had searched for a ‘river route to China’. The aim was to showcase the potential of the region for eco-tourism and the need to preserve the unique environments there.

TropIKA: How does the idea of the current enterprise come about?

Helge Bendl: After the completion the Mekong expedition, Andy Leemann and I were looking for a new project together – a project to support a good cause and a project that would be attractive to the media and interesting for the public. We realised that along the Zambezi river tropical diseases like the malaria that killed Livingstone as well as his wife Mary 150 years ago still prevail. While Livingstone came to establish the so-called ‘three big Cs’ – Christianity, commerce and civilization, today’s ‘big three’ for the people living in Africa are HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. While travelling in the region we decided that we wanted to contribute to improving health care along the Zambezi.

So, almost two years ago Andy and I decided to create the project that will start in a couple of weeks: an expedition as an advocacy vehicle to showcase the difficulties and successes in fighting malaria. Our intention was to bring basic medical care to remote places that are difficult to access and, through the involvement of journalists, to increase public awareness of the malaria epidemic along the river.

TropIKA: How did you manage to establish a partnership with Roll Back Malaria (RBM)?

Helge Bendl: About one year ago we went to them to present our idea and RBM saw the advantages of such an exceptional project. After that, RBM reached out to its own partners for support. The project has grown substantially because of that (for example with events on World Malaria Day), but the initial ideas came from us. However, without the support of RBM and its partners (ExxonMobil, Malaria No More, Medicines for Malaria Venture, Nets for Life, Novartis, and the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation) this project would not have been so successful.

TropIKA: What are you expecting to be the major challenges to be tackled during the whole expedition?

Andy Leemann: During the two month long trip, we will have to cope with some of the same difficulties Livingstone faced 150 years ago. The obstacles (rapids, sand bars, flooding, wildlife and diseases like malaria!) have remained the same, but we will of course be much better prepared and equipped for the task. We take advantage of the fact that we are travelling in rigid inflatable boats (ribs) that are appropriate for shallow waters and extreme conditions. We can travel where others cannot.

TropIKA: You are experienced in navigating under harsh conditions. What about the rest of the team?

Andy Leemann: Camping for two months in the heart of Africa with a team of 15 people (crew, medical teams and journalists) will not be an easy task. We have to work as a team under difficult conditions – personally, we think, this is not going to be easy. Logistics is very difficult, but we are happy to have a South African expert, Andrew Weinberg, who is organizing this on our behalf. Thanks to the support of SADC and the six countries that are sharing the river, we have the political sponsorship secured and don't expect any troubles at borders.

TropIKA: Is the crew planning to carry out some follow-up visits or assessments to the visited communities after the expedition is over, in order to measure results? How is this going to be done?

Helge Bendl: The Zambezi Expedition is a spectacular project that took Andy Leemann and me two years to prepare – it is a unique advocacy project, it won’t become a regular venture. But through cooperation with the National Malaria Control Programmes of the countries we are passing through (they send us the medical teams on the boats, they are responsible for the content and extent of all malaria activities) we do actually have a sustainable project, because they have been and will be working in the areas we are passing through, and that fact is very important to us.

Five countries in the region (Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe) are now planning the ‘Trans-Zambezi Project’ to tackle malaria along the river. The expedition is not only an advocacy vehicle for the fight against malaria in general, but specifically for that project. Some malaria programmes have suggested us to use the villages we are going to visit with the expedition as starting points for the upcoming broader health project, so in this case there will be follow-up visits and the fight against the deadly disease will continue. And even though the expedition won’t be repeated in the near future, the river crew will definitely come back from time to time to see how the area in general and the villages we visit will develop themselves by tackling malaria successfully.

About the Roll Back Malaria Partnership

To provide a coordinated global approach to fighting malaria, the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership was launched in 1998 by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank. The RBM Partnership has expanded exponentially since its launch and is now made up of a wide range of partners — including malaria-endemic countries, their bilateral and multilateral development partners, the private sector, nongovernmental and community-based organizations, foundations, and research and academic institutions — who bring a formidable assembly of expertise, infrastructure and funds into the fight against the disease.

Contact details:

Hervé Verhoosel, Media & Project Manager

Roll Back Malaria Partnership

Office number - +41 (0) 22 791 55 18

Cell phone - +41 (0) 79 701 9480

verhooselh@who.int

Helge Bendl

Expedition Leader

Cell phone - +49 (0) 178 44 890 44

helge.bendl@zambezi-expedition.org