World Health Op-Editorial by Brittany Harris, as published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch .

"Brittany, remember it's just different." These were the words my grandfather spoke to me as I boarded the plane for my 18-hour flight to Africa.

Stepping out of my Bridgeton frame of mind into the slums of Kenya, I found myself replaying my grandfather's words in my head like a mantra, trying to remind myself that Kenya's dirt roads, minimal electricity and limited indoor plumbing were just different.

During my 9-week visit in the summer of 2005, I grew fond of showering with rain water, being mesmerized by a sky filled with stars instead of city lights and running around with children who had never blown bubbles, popped a balloon or played with a kickball.

At the same time, I did not need to be fluent in Swahili to understand that this country - this continent - is being torn apart. As I looked around and saw the dire poverty, as I heard the stories of families destroyed by disease, as I walked streets clogged with trash and feces, I came to understand that I was not just seeing something different. I was seeing something heart-breaking.

Back in my U.S. college classroom, the images of what I saw in Kenya would not leave my memory. Class discussions on the effects of poverty and disease no longer were mere statistics to be memorized for a test; they were issues linked to a vivid reality.

I knew that my work was not finished on the continent of Africa, but I also realized that another trip abroad was far too expensive for this college student. So I started looking into other, more economical ways for me to address the problems.

I contacted the American Red Cross and learned about measles, a disease that claims the lives of 282,000 children each year in Africa alone. Measles kills more children than AIDS, tuberculosis and malnutrition, but the even harsher reality is that it is preventable. Forty years after a vaccine became available, measles continues to be the leading vaccine-preventable cause of death among African children.

This need not continue. Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health has recognized that, at 84-cents per child, vaccinating against measles is one of the ten most cost-effective ways to improve world health.

In order to combat the growing problem of measles, the American Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, UNICEF, World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control established the Measles Initiative partnership in 2001. (It has since expanded to include malaria.)

Already, the initiative has produced dramatic results. In its first five years of operation, more than 200 million children have been vaccinated for measles, helping to prevent more than 1.2 million deaths and dropping the infection rate in Africa by 60 percent.

To do my part, I spent this summer as an intern for the St. Louis Area Chapter of the American Red Cross, working to help increase local awareness of a tragedy that has been overlooked for too long. Working on grassroots education and fund-raising projects, I learned that we can make a difference, even from here.

What does it take? People who recognize that third-world countries plagued by preventable diseases are not merely different. They represent a tragic reality that can be improved - if we make a personal commitment to help.

For more information on the Measles Initiative partnership, visit www.measlesinitiative.org.

Brittany Harris of Bridgeton is starting her junior year at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO.