In the end, after weeks of preparation, eight train cars were loaded up with 300,000 bednets, the train was draped in flags and banners, and dignitaries gathered in front of Pointe Noire's imposing Art Deco station. The Minister of Health, Social Policy and Family, Emelienne Raoul, donned a white engineer's hat and whistled off the train, and the historic journey was under

Congo 's Minister of Health, Social Policy and Family, Emelienne Raoul, sends off the train carrying 300,000 insecticide-treated bednets donated by Japan.

Strategic partnership

With armed police on board for protection through the rebel-held Pool region, the train passed signs of some earlier derailments along the track—shards of metal discarded around sharp corners. But there was little visible evidence of the toll the railroad took during its construction in the French colonial heydays here.

"It's a great irony that the railroad that took 20,000 lives to build in the 1920s is now being used to save lives," said UNICEF's Representative in Congo, Dr. Koen Vanormelingen.

"It was a tremendous challenge to get these nets out, and on a regular schedule it would have taken a year to transport them," added Dr. Vanormelingen. "So we came up with the strategic partnership with the railroad company and the government."

Protecting every child

The reason for such big plans is plain to see at any hospital or clinic, where child malaria cases abound. According to the UNICEF country office, only about 5 percent of pregnant women and children under five sleep beneath insecticide-treated bednets in Congo. Malaria is the major cause of sickness and death in children; it is also the leading cause of dangerous anemia in pregnant women, which results in low birthweight among newborns.

Donations from the Government of Japan and the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, and support from the Congolese Government and the national railroad company, all helped UNICEF get the campaign rolling out against the biggest killer of this country's children. It was the first step in pre-positioning the bednets at health districts across Congo for the upcoming Child Health Days, a major integrated campaign that will provide vitamin A supplementation, routine vaccination and de-worming as well as malaria nets. The train against malaria also helped to create awareness about the scheduled October campaign, during which half a million bednets will be distributed—with the aim of reaching nearly every child under the age of five.

Before the train leaves Pointe Noire, workers load it with bednets to be distributed to families throughout Congo .