The United Nations Foundation and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) will send over 346,000 life-saving bed nets to refugees in temporary camps in 11 African countries, the UN Foundation announced this week.
The bed nets, which protect people from malaria-carrying mosquitoes, are part of the UN Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign, a global, grassroots initiative to prevent malaria. The campaign’s partners include the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares, the people of The United Methodist Church and Sports Illustrated.
The UN Foundation said the campaign has already sent more than 275,000 nets to 27 camps in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Sudan. Malaria is the number one killer of refugees in Africa.
Long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets are one of the easiest and cost-effective methods of preventing the spread of the malaria, the UN Foundation said. Bed nets prevent malaria transmission by keeping out mosquitoes at night, when the vast majority of transmissions occur.
It costs just $10 to purchase and deliver a net to a refugee in need and to educate the recipient on its proper use.
"Thanks to the incredible work of our partners and supporters, we’ve already been able to protect more than 600,000 refugees from malaria in eastern Africa," said Elizabeth Gore, executive director of Nothing But Nets. "Now we’ll be able to help protect over a million of the world’s most vulnerable people."
Due to inadequate shelter, unsanitary living conditions and lack of medical care and supplies, refugees are particularly susceptible to contracting malaria and dying from the disease. Two thirds of the 33 million refugees worldwide live in malaria-endemic countries, the foundation said.
Due to successful campaigns like the Nothing But Nets campaign, the death toll from malaria has been dropping – malaria now accounts for just 10 percent of all refugee deaths, down from 33 percent just three years ago. 
