Lifeblood: How to Change the World One Dead Mosquito at a Time

Perry (Falling Off the Edge) examines the struggle to fight malaria, which infects more than 708,000 people a year%E2%80%94mostly children%E2%80%94in his important, clear-eyed study of the epidemic. In his travels in Uganda and throughout Africa, Perry saw the casualties of the mosquito-borne disease firsthand, and his analysis draws on his conversations with doctors and diplomats, grieving parents, and frustrated aid workers. For decades scientists have known that the disease can be virtually eradicated by a combination of insect-killing chemicals and bed nets, costing only $10 a piece. Sadly, malaria is "a genocide of apathy,%E2%80%9D in which governmental and aid agencies consistently fall short in their attempts to stop the spread of the disease. Combining business acumen with humanitarian goals, independent activists like Ray Chambers have achieved major advances against the epidemic while global health organizations have fallen short. Malaria costs Africa $30-$40 billion each year, Chambers tells Perry, and points out that his work%E2%80%94distributing 42 million bed nets to Nigeria, "didn't just save lives. It saved money too.%E2%80%9D In this compulsively readable primer on a devastating epidemic, Perry shows how Chambers's approach%E2%80%94creating economic incentives and emphasizing local action over top-down mandates%E2%80%94offers a daring new model for tackling one of the most intractable crises of our time. (Sept.)