Abstract
The role played by postage stamps in the history of malaria control and eradication has largely gone unrecognized. Scientific investigators of malaria, especially Nobel laureates, were commemorated with special issues, but the work of the World Health Organization (WHO), which promoted an ambitious and global philatelic initiative in 1962 to support global eradication, is generally overlooked. This review examines the philatelic programme that helped to generate international commitment to the goal of malaria eradication in 1962 and established philatelic malaria icons that had worldwide recognition. Malaria-related postage stamps have continued to be issued since then, but the initial failure of malaria eradication and the changing goals of each new malaria programme, inevitably diluted their role. After the first Global Malaria Eradication Campaign was discontinued in 1969, few Nations released philatelic issues. Since the Spirit of Dakar Call for Action in 1996 a resurgence of postage stamp releases has occurred, largely tracking global malaria control initiatives introduced between 1996 and 2020. These releases were not co-ordinated by the WHO as before, were more commercialized and targeted stamp collectors, especially with attractive miniature sheets, often produced by photomontage. Having a different purpose, they demonstrated a much wider diversity in symbolism than the earlier stylized issues and at times, have been scientifically inaccurate. Nonetheless postage stamps greatly helped to communicate the importance of malaria control programmes to a wide audience and to some extent, have supported preventive health messages.
Highlights
Postage stamps are often issued to commemorate special events or noteworthy individuals
Search strategy All countries included in the most recent six volume Stanley Gibbons Stamps of the World (1840–2014) catalogue were screened for stamps directly related to malaria [19]
The role of the World Health Organization (WHO) was critical as it undertook technical co-ordination of national responses and endeavoured to harness a global philatelic initiative in the promotion of its goal for eradication
Summary
Postage stamps are often issued to commemorate special events or noteworthy individuals. They may promote new public initiatives and even political agendas [1, 2]. Stamps celebrate World Health Organization (WHO) anniversaries and pay tribute to medical, individual, or scientific discoveries. Despite its small size and discrete purpose (letter or parcel), the stamp is postulated to capture a more concentrated health message density per sq. Others have referred to stamps as ‘icons’, meaning that, like icons in art more generally, they have the ability to capture depictions and symbols that speak to different cultures about the same health event, the impact of such messages through postage stamps would be almost impossible to measure
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