Dr. Peter Singer on closing the global health gap

In part, the mission of Grand Challenges Canada is to fund local ideas for inventions that could improve community health and to research some controversial ideas (like tweaking the DNA of mosquitoes to stop them from spreading malaria). But how do you take that knowledge out of the lab and put it into the hands of those who need it most? For Daar and Singer, their goal is clear: to match the life expectancies of children born in Africa to those born in Canada.

"We need to commit ourselves to justice and to righting inequities," Singer said. "Whether you're talking about hunger, climate, or global health — these things all have to do with people in the developing world having just as much right to a full life as people in Canada or the U.S. or anywhere else."

But is there a political will to right those wrongs? "The 'grand challenge' as a movement is all about people in different countries working together," said Singer. The key is looking for creative, sustainable solutions, which can come from anywhere — even someone's stinky, sweaty socks.

Well, sort of. One of the projects funded recently by Grand Challenges Canada and the Gates foundation really does use dirty socks to reduce malaria, which annually kills 800,000 children worldwide. Dr. Fredros Okumu, a Tanzanian scientist, noticed that when kids played soccer, mosquitoes would come after them, attracted to their sweaty socks. So Okumu built a box that uses stinky socks to attract and kill mosquitoes, thus reducing malaria. Singer offers this as one of the "sustainable solutions, which are about local people helping their own communities and countries."

Such projects are really where the future lies. "The future is in small and medium enterprise in the developing world itself," Singer explained. Another example is a Tanzania-based textile company that makes bednets, the first line of defence against malaria. Not only does this business provide something necessary, it is an important part of the economy, as it employs 6,000 workers.

Though diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are currently primarily issues of geography, Singer warns against North Americans dismissing such problems as too far away. "Anyone who thinks global health is 'over there' is wrong," he said. "Global health affects us all."

The Grandest Challenge: Taking Life-Saving Science from Lab to Village

by Dr. Abdallah Daar & Dr. Peter Singer

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From the publisher:

"The health-sciences equivalent of Thomas Friedman's bestseller The World is Flat, this inspiring and revelatory book by two of today's finest scientists shows how advances in global health will transform lives — particularly in the developing world — over the next decade.

The Grandest Challenge begins with a simple premise: that every person's life is of equal value, regardless of where in the world he or she lives. It also begins with a simple, alarming fact: in this age of spectacular scientific advances, it is still those who live in the developed world — in the West — who benefit most from our enormous power to combat disease, and those in the developing world who are most likely to die for lack of basic, inexpensive care and nutrition..."

Read more at Random House Canada.