Media personality Bonang Matheba has joined the fight against malaria in the second chapter of the multi-award winning Draw the Line Against Malaria, saying supporting the campaign is about creating an African future free of the deadly disease.
Bonang expressed her passion for grooming and enabling future leaders, especially the youth on the continent whose future has been held back by malaria.
“We know this is a winnable fight, my home country South Africa is edging ever closer to eliminating this preventable disease,” she said.
“Let’s take our voices to the Kigali Summit on Malaria and NTDs [neglected tropical diseases] in June, and the Global Fund replenishment in September, and show the leaders that we must draw the line against malaria.”
The campaign will be fronted by a film directed by Grammy award-winning Meji Alabi, and starring alongside Bonang is malaria champion and UK football legend David Beckham, soccer star Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, Kenyan Olympic gold medalist and marathon world record-holder Eliud Kipchoge, Nigerian Afropop singer, songwriter and actress Yemi Alade, and Kenyan 2016 Rio Olympic and 2020 Tokyo Olympic middle-distance champion Faith Kipyegon.
The film will be available on channels and platforms across the world ahead of the Kigali Summit on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases scheduled for the eve of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda on June 23.
World Health Organisation director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said his organisation welcomes a new host of scientists, youth, and champions who have joined the fight against malaria when progress against the disease is lagging.
“Draw The Line provides a platform for Africa’s most powerful narrators to change this trajectory, disrupt political apathy, and lead the fight to end this treatable and preventable disease which kills a child nearly every minute,” said Ghebreyesus.
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