Note to Correspondents

Multimedia Exhibition on Impact of Malaria Opens

at United Nations Headquarters, 15 March

A multimedia exhibition illustrating the impact of malaria will open to the public on Monday, 15 March, in the Main Gallery of the Visitors Lobby at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

Entitled "Malaria:  Blood, Sweat and Tears", the exhibition features photographs from the travels of award-winning photographer Adam Nadel to malaria-endemic countries including Cambodia, Nigeria and Uganda.

Accompanying the images are the personal stories of malaria sufferers and malaria experts from all over the world, describing the challenges involved in tackling malaria, and its contribution to meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

The exhibition also provides information on all aspects of the disease malaria -- from the history to the science -- and captures the new positive outlook resulting from recent progress made by some African countries in reducing malaria deaths by more than 50 per cent.

Malaria kills more than 860,000 people a year, mainly women and children, and half the world's population -- some 3.3 billion people in 109 countries -- is at risk of contracting the disease.  Africa bears the greatest burden, with 90 per cent of all malaria deaths occurring in 44 countries south of the Sahara.

The exhibition is produced and conceived by the United Kingdom-based Malaria Consortium, the world's leading non-profit organization dedicated to comprehensive control of malaria, and Adam Nadel, with the generous support of Vestergaard Frandsen S.A., a European-based company specializing in complex emergency response and disease-control products, under the umbrella of the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership, the global framework for coordinated action against malaria founded by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

A special viewing event at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, 21 April, in the Main Gallery of the Visitors Lobby will provide the focus of events in New York to mark this year's World Malaria Day on 25 April.

For more information on this exhibition contact Herve Verhoosel, Roll Back Malaria Partnership Secretariat, at +1 917 345 5238; or e-mail him at verhoosel@un.org.

For more information on United Nations exhibitions, call Jan Arnesen at +1 212 963 8531, e-mail arnesen@un.org; or Liza Wichmann at +1 212 963 0089, e-mail wichmann@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record