At a lunch hosted by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, President Wade offered a special thanks to the organizer of his trip, Donna Sims Wilson, president of MR Beal & Company, a leading investment banking firm specializing in municipal finance, corporate finance and equity execution.
He touted his administration’s progress in food security and called for increased innovation to bridge the digital and green technology gaps that currently separate developed countries from less developed ones.
Prior to President Wade’s remarks, Scott Case, the founder of Priceline.com, praised Senegal for another reason – progress in reducing the number of deaths from malaria.
Case serves as CEO of the non-profit, Malaria No More, and he noted that 2.2 million mosquito nets had been distributed last year in Senegal. He said that some $12 billion dollars a year in gross domestic product could be freed up, IF malaria was eliminated from the country.
Malaria No More reports that infections worldwide now number around 250 million cases a year, with nearly a million deaths, mostly among young children in Africa.
Experts agree that to control malaria, and ultimately to ensure that families can live malaria-free lives, a comprehensive approach is necessary, involving roviding insecticide-treated mosquito nets, spraying the inside walls of houses with insecticides, providing access to diagnosis and antimalarial drugs, and providing a packet of interventions through strengthened antenatal care services for pregnant women.
President Wade, Case said, has taken major steps to lead the fight against malaria not just in Senegal, but throughout the African continent.
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