Madness against Malaria

[paddyfool]

Dear all,

I'd like to draw your attention to a fun charitable competition here (http://www.madnessagainstmalaria.com). The idea of this competition is a knock-out tournament between different teams of donors to see who can raise the most money to buy bed nets for malaria control.

Also, more specifically, you can consider yourself invited to join a little team I set up here (http://www.madnessagainstmalaria.com/pirates), and be part of me scurvy crew. (However should you choose to join another, lesser, team, since it's all for a good cause anyway I probably won't make you walk the plank). And if anyone with graphic skills could craft the team a nicely pirate vs malaria image, that would be grand (mosquito and crossbones, perhaps?)

Also, finally, for next year, I was thinking of making a team with nice, broad appeal, like "Geekdom against malaria", or perhaps "A few days income" (the latter idea designed to draw in big spenders, by making the point that a $5 mosquito net is a few days income for many people in malaria-affected regions, so why not give a few days of yours?) Any thoughts on these ideas would be more than welcome.

Thank you for reading this far!

Paddy

[Artemician]

I don't have any methods getting money donated (minor, hence no credit card) but I offer you my moral support.

After all, with a name like mine... (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemesinin)

[Felixaar]

Ohh, I'm in, since I'm going to Africa in a few months anyway. Don't know of any specific ways I can raise money but I'll donate some myself.

[paddyfool]

Felixaar,

Thank ye kindly, shipmate! Your donation put us nicely ahead of Princeton. By the way, where in Africa?

Artemician,

Thank ye, honorary shipmate!

Everyone else,

More donations be very welcome this week, and even more so next week. We need to be ahead of Princeton at 8pm E.S.T on Friday to win this round, and then we're up against the reigning champions...

[Felixaar]

Woo! Take that, Princeton! :smallamused: I'll be sure to check back later on to see how we're going.

And I'm going to a few places, Zambia and South Africa mostly. Dont worry, I'll be taking Insect Reppellent and buying Malaria Pills.

[paddyfool]

Great, have fun! You won't need the antimalarials for South Africa (mostly), but they would be handy for Zambia. Your choices on pills are the following:

Larium, aka mefloquine - you only have to take this once a week, and it's cheap. But about 20% of people have some kind of psych symptoms; usually fairly minor, along the lines of varying degrees of sleep disruption, but sometimes pretty major (psychosis, halucinations, paranoid delusions...), so I've never taken it.

Malarone - pretty much asymptomatic, but it's expensive and you have to take it daily. Could be a good choice if you only need it for a short time.

Doxycycline- you have to take it daily, it makes many people who take it more vulnerable to sunburn, its antibiotic effects are a mixed blessing and it should always be taken after a meal or it'll give you a painful little stomach ache, but it's cheap (was my usual choice; after 2 and a half years, here, however, I'm no longer on the pills unless I'm going to a high prevalence area).

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Incidentally, I've edited the Pirates against Malaria (http://www.madnessagainstmalaria.com/pirates) page slightly - now much more cheapskate-friendly!

So far, our crew consists of:

One Captain
Two Undead Monkeys (one a friend waiting for the pivotal Friday night bid)
One Cat (whoever it was actually gave enough to be a parrot, but they seemed to like cats better, so so be it)

I'm loving the visual, but a few more be welcome.