Halfway!!!! Thinking that most people who have done this challenge have done it for five days, I'm beginning to think I was impossibly ridiculous when brashly saying I would do it for eight. One more day would have been simple - four more stretch ahead like the American roads of the movies. But there was a reason I chose to do eight - to give me the chance to talk about each of the Millennium Development Goal. And today's is incredibly important to me.
When I was in Tanzania in 2007, I got a bad case of Malaria. Let me tell you - it wasn't pretty. There were fevers, there was vomit, there were hallucinations and that was just the start (in not the ideal situation to only have access to drop toilets). Carted to hospital, I was told by the doctor that it was Malaria p.Falciparum - the only type of Malaria that isn't chronic (bonus), but the only type that is potentially fatal. Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact I am rubbish when it comes to being ill. I mean really bad - I whinge and whinge and whinge.
So that night, watching the insulin run into my hand, I was feeling ridiculously sorry for myself. But then I was told about something that happened a couple of weeks before I was there. A woman had gone into labour, so she went to the hospital. She had to share her bed with another pregnant woman as there weren't enough beds to go around. The nurses and doctors do a great job in those hospitals - but pretty, hygienic and comfortable they are not.
The women ended up giving birth within about thirty minutes of each other. Afterwards, the woman was looking across at the other one - who was smiling down at the crying baby in her arms. She then looked back down at the baby in her arms - dead and stillborn.
She was released without therapy and without support.
I stopped feeling sorry for myself pretty damn quickly.
That's why taking action to reduce child mortality is personally very important to me. It's an area where we've actually made a great deal of progress:
The mortality rate dropped from 100 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 72 in 2008. Globally, this means the number of under-fives dying has fallen from 12.5 million to 8.8 million. The greatest progress has been made in some of the world's poorest countries. Immunisation coverage has increased, but access to vaccines is often dependent on social and economic factors. Children from poorer, rural households are less likely to be immunised. Immunisation rates have declined in China and Vietnam, while they have doubled in Cambodia.
So progress is patchy - but there has been significant progress. That's why we should celebrate our successes, but accelerate our efforts towards achieving the MDGs - as so beautifully demonstrated by the video below from the ONE Campaign. Please help me in accelerating by going to www.justgiving.com/dennis-marcus
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