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malaria

concept · in 45 videos (2008–2026)

Mosquito-borne parasitic disease, a major cause of death in poor countries.

Videos by year: 2008: 1 · 2009: 5 · 2010: 2 · 2011: 3 · 2012: 1 · 2013: 1 · 2014: 9 · 2015: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2018: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2023: 7 · 2024: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2026: 1

Threads

Also named in the threads: John asks Nerdfighters to help fund Shawn Ahmed's work in Bangladesh (2008) · Nerdfighter donations to the Uncultured Project for rural Bangladesh (2008) · John Green bobblehead: John's birthday present, sold to Nerdfighters (2009) · P4A 2009 edition · John's camcorder stops working (2009) · John asks viewers to donate to Malaria No More on behalf of his unborn baby via FirstGiving (P4A 2009) · John's visit to rural health care in Ethiopia with the Gates Foundation (2014) · John's viral meningitis and hospitalisation (2014) · John keeps looking away while filming sick children and worried mothers in Ethiopia (2014)

Often together

What comes up in the same parts of the videos; the number is how many parts.

child mortality (11) · global health (8) · tuberculosis (16) · extreme poverty (5) · othering (3) · education (4) · Sierra Leone (7) · vaccine (4) · maternal death (4) · progress (3)

What the videos say

The most important statements of each year; all statements.

2008

  • 2008-05-19 · Three Things — John: Everyone in the family but the father has had malaria; Shawn brought them a mosquito net, and Hank's money will fix the roof that leaks onto their bed. — 00:01:42

2009

  • 2009-04-19 · Weekend of Surreality — John says he told Nerdfighters following him on Twitter, as a joke, that if they got Ashton Kutcher to follow him he would give $1,000 against malaria, thinking it a safe bet. — 00:00:00
    • Ashton Kutcher is now following John on Twitter; John says he underestimated the power of Nerdfighteria and gave $1,000 to buy bed nets. — 00:00:48
  • 2009-12-13 · Eyelash Malaria — John argues that as long as drug companies are driven solely by the free market, too much money goes to eyelash research and too little to malaria research. — 00:00:44
    • John says the 2000s were a great decade for eyelash research but not good at researching drugs for malaria. (playful) — 00:00:44
    • John argues real free-market economics calls for much more malaria research, since malaria drains the world economy more than Wall Street bankers or the foreclosure crisis. — 00:01:13
    • John argues a malaria cure would not profit its maker as quickly as an eyelash drug, but its profits would rise long-term as the world economy grew; the free market isn't forward-thinking enough to see this. — 00:01:42
    • John says that this year (2009) in the Project for Awesome he will make a video in support of malaria research, joking that it's because curing malaria will make him rich. — 00:02:05
  • 2009-12-15 · In Which A Secret Is Revealed — announcement: John says he will auction off his one and only pair of nerd glasses, which he wore in most 2008 Vlogbrothers videos. — 00:02:44
  • 2009-12-16 · Project for Awesome: The Nature Conservancy — announcement: Hank says a single John Green bobblehead signed by both brothers is also being auctioned; his auction money goes to the Nature Conservancy, and John's (glasses, bobblehead) to stopping malaria. — 00:01:25
  • 2009-12-17 · THE 2009 PROJECT FOR AWESOME!!! — John says people offered baby presents, but the unborn baby already has everything; the one thing it desperately wants is an end to malaria. (playful) — 00:01:17
    • John says that unlike his unborn child, viewers and he are not stuck inside amniotic sacs, so they can do something about malaria. (playful) — 00:02:03
    • John is auctioning his nerd glasses, worn in almost every 2008 Vlogbrothers video; the auction is linked in the sidebar and all proceeds go to Malaria No More. — 00:02:03
  • …and 5 statements more in 2009 — all statements of 2009

2010

  • 2010-01-20 · OMG MY BROTHER HAD A BABY — ask: Hank says John's baby needs gifts and asks viewers to follow the sidebar link to give him the only gift he wants: a world without malaria. — 00:02:57
  • 2010-10-27 · You Are Awesome — John says a recent BlogTV show raised a lot of money for surgery for James at War's cat, plus an equal amount to fight malaria. — 00:01:11
    • John says the surgery cost less than expected, so James at War and his wife drove from Texas to Chicago with a check for the difference, which John pocketed unopened and later found was $540. (playful) — 00:01:41

2011

  • 2011-01-26 · I OWN WARNER CHILCOTT! — John says Hank would probably choose a pill curing malaria over one curing male pattern baldness, malaria being possibly the biggest drag on world economic productivity; the market sees only baldness riches. (hedged) — 00:01:23
  • 2011-02-02 · Top 5 Awesome Things About the Webb Telescope — Hank: None of this is necessary to life on Earth or will cure malaria or install democracy in Egypt, but it is awesome in the truest sense: increasing awesome Hank can get behind. — 00:03:26
  • 2011-10-19 · Question Wed — THE COVER OF THE FAULT IN OUR STARS! — John: On the Oxford comma, John values clarity in writing, but debating it reminds him life is a finite set of moments; brainpower spent on it would be better spent curing malaria. — 00:01:32

2012

  • 2012-12-17 · THE PROJECT FOR AWESOME 2012 IS HERE! Save the Children. — John says poverty is an incredibly complex problem: corrupt governments, malaria and HIV/AIDS, climate change and energy policy hurting food production, malnutrition, poor infrastructure and education, and discrimination all contribute. — 00:00:52

2013

2014

  • 2014-01-21 · Are Poor Countries Doomed? — John says malaria, measles and TB have all declined dramatically, and healthier kids go to school more and later work more than if chronically ill or disabled. — 00:02:09
  • 2014-07-29 · Listen: Thoughts from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — John says if our kids were dying of malaria and diarrhea we wouldn't stand for it, but these are our kids: our world is very literally their world. — 00:02:41
  • 2014-08-12 · EBOLA! (...meningitis) — John: Ebola is a very serious crisis in West Africa, but John says more people will die of malaria today than have died of Ebola in the last ten years combined. — 00:00:53
    • In hospital, doctors worried he might have meningitis, malaria, typhoid or dengue fever, all potentially fatal, but were not worried about Ebola. — 00:01:04
    • More than half a million people will die of malaria this year (2014), yet malaria is not imagined as a disease 'coming for us', whatever 'us' means. — 00:02:36
    • Addressing that infrastructure problem instead of panicking about Ebola reaching 'us' would reduce transmission and also save many lives from malaria, typhoid and meningitis. — 00:03:14
  • 2014-08-19 · Baby Names: Thoughts from Rural Ethiopia — John: A health extension worker showed John her records, delivery room and vaccination charts; a boy tested positive for malaria with a pinprick test that has dramatically improved diagnosis and began treatment at once. — 00:01:43
    • Their progress is real and should be celebrated, but much remains: children should not die of diarrhea, pneumonia or malaria, and far too many still do. — 00:03:07
  • 2014-09-23 · Looking Away — John says much of his Ethiopia footage shows him looking away: from families at a hospital, preterm babies under inadequate heat lamps, and a very sick boy his son's age awaiting a malaria test. — 00:00:19
    • John understands the urge to look away but thinks changing the world means grappling with it as we find it; a world without children dying of diarrhea and malaria won't come from looking away. (hedged) — 00:01:49
  • 2014-09-29 · Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Progress — Bill Gates: Gates hopes to get polio certified eradicated by 2018; the credibility and energy from that would let them take new tools and go after a malaria plan. (hedged) — 00:00:10
  • 2014-10-21 · Ebola: What IS Terrifying — John: We imagine diseases like cholera or malaria happen to poor faraway people, but Ebola shows the us/them dichotomy is false: better health care in Liberia is good for all humans. — 00:01:39
  • …and 2 statements more in 2014 — all statements of 2014

Also named in: Food Is Weird: Understanding Agriculture in the Developing World

2015

  • 2015-01-27 · Will Life Get Better for the Poor? — John says in the rich world fewer than 1% of kids die before age 5, almost no one gets malaria, few lack vaccines for want of refrigeration, and serious child malnutrition is extremely uncommon. — 00:00:28
    • John says in the other world 1.5 million kids die yearly of vaccine-preventable diseases, there are about 200 million malaria cases a year, and over 25% of kids are stunted by malnutrition. — 00:00:44
  • 2015-09-22 · Is Poverty Necessary? Looking back at the Millennium Development Goals — John: Halting HIV/AIDS and malaria has been a huge success: HIV deaths fell once investment in prevention and treatment rose, and global malaria deaths fell about 20% since 2000. — 00:02:50

2016

2017

  • 2017-02-21 · Does Human Life Have Real Meaning? — John: Asked whether his greatest hope or greatest fear would win a duel, John says he doesn't know who would win between absolute oblivion and a cure for malaria. (unsure) — 00:03:24

2018

  • 2018-10-09 · How Big a Problem is Mental Illness? — John says measured in DALYs, malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia become much more prominent because they disproportionately affect younger people. — 00:00:58
    • John says in Sierra Leone communicable diseases are overwhelmingly the leading cause of lost life years, but mental illness causes more burden than almost any other non-communicable disease. — 00:01:56
  • 2018-11-27 · On The Melian Dialogue — John says 266,000 children under five died of malaria last year (2017), almost all of them poor. — 00:01:56
    • John says those children did not really die of malaria, usually treatable with more robust health systems, but because the weak suffer what they must. (hedged) — 00:02:26
  • 2018-12-07 · BABIES! The 2018 Project for Awesome is here… — John says 266,000 children are expected to die of malaria this year (2018), 728 of them born yesterday, and another 14,000 children born yesterday will die before age five. — 00:01:43

2022

2023

  • 2023-01-31 · I'm Going Back to College? — John says that in 2022 more people died of tuberculosis than of homicide, war, malaria, typhoid and cholera combined. — 00:00:58
  • 2023-06-13 · touched by a king — John: Answering a viewer in the comments, John says TB kills more people every year than malaria, typhoid, homicide and war combined. — creator comment
    • In a comment John says one much-publicised model claimed up to half of all humans died of malaria, but most models indicate this is nowhere near true. — creator comment
    • John's comment says malaria remains a huge, cheaply preventable and treatable problem, but TB is deadlier and probably always has been. (hedged) — creator comment
  • 2023-07-18 · Tuberculosis Fighters Have a Posse — John says organizations worked hard to put malaria at the center of health conversations, especially in the early 2000s, when the malaria death rate finally began to drop. — 00:02:26
  • 2023-08-15 · Henry — John says tuberculosis, though usually curable, still kills over 1.5 million people a year, more than malaria and HIV combined. — 00:03:14
  • 2023-09-12 · Barely Contained Rage: An Open Letter to Danaher and Cepheid — John says 1.6 million people will die of tuberculosis this year (2023), more than malaria and HIV combined, which infuriates him because TB is curable. — 00:00:00
  • 2023-12-05 · MASSIVE Tuberculosis News — John thinks the study matters not only for TB treatment but for how to speed up innovation in treating other diseases, from malaria to cancer. — 00:00:00
  • …and 1 statement more in 2023 — all statements of 2023

2024

2025

  • 2025-02-25 · EVERYTHING IS TUBERCULOSIS — John says over a million people died of tuberculosis in 2023, more than died of malaria, typhoid and war combined. — 00:04:37
  • 2025-02-28 · We Will Eradicate Measles — Hank says beyond the information battle we are losing the ability to help children elsewhere survive measles, malaria, tuberculosis and other preventable diseases, with no clear reason why. — 00:06:08
  • 2025-03-04 · The ANXIETY IS PALPABLE — John says that now we are laying out the red carpet on that trail for diseases of injustice like malaria, HIV and tuberculosis. — 00:01:50
  • 2025-11-04 · The Real Question — John adds millions more deaths from malaria, diarrheal illnesses and other things that should have been eliminated decades ago. — 00:03:24

Also named in: 90,000,000 Lives for $20

2026