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The foundation is named after an ancient Scottish king of whom Macdonald is a descendant.

Cooperating with a local working group of village leaders, Macdonald and Stuart Showalter of Olney distributed almost 3,000 insecticide-treated nets and curtains to the Kaan people, an ethnic group living in 12 villages.

‘‘Providing nets and curtains is a way to save lives and that’s always appealed to me,” said Macdonald, who founded the Somerled Foundation in 2004 with the goal of distributing a meningitis vaccine in Burkina Faso.

Showalter said their efforts were ‘‘successful due to the interest and support of the project by the Kaan Iya, traditional leader of the Kaan people, who took a personal interest in the distribution and accompanied the campaign team to each village.”

More nets and curtains were distributed in the weeks following the visit, Macdonald said. Local health care officials and representatives of the World Health Organization also assisted the foundation.

Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease caused by a parasite, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site.

People with malaria often experience fever, chills and flu-like symptoms. Left untreated, they may develop severe complications and die. Each year, 350 million to 500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and more than one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa, the Web site states.

Showalter, who has worked in Burkina Faso as a missionary⁄linguist for over 20 years, said malaria is the main cause of death among children under the age of 5. It also dangerously affects pregnant women, causing miscarriages or a low birth weight for newborns, and contributes to the high rate of poverty.

‘‘It’s a huge problem,” he said, ‘‘and we hope to be able to expand to more areas in Burkina Faso.”

Showalter and Macdonald met with Priscille Zongo, the wife of Burkina Faso Prime Minister Tertius Zongo, to discuss the foundation’s work during her recent visit to the Washington, D.C., area.

Showalter met the Zongos last year while the prime minister was serving as ambassador to the United States.

Priscille Zongo wants to make malaria prevention one of her primary focuses while her husband is in office, Showalter said.

‘‘Since malaria is something that affects everyone, especially children, the [Somerled] foundation is quite welcome in Burkina Faso,” Zongo said in a telephone conversation July 18 with Showalter translating from French, the country’s official language, to English.

She said she is ‘‘very confident” that the nets and curtains will have a positive effect based on statistics from other countries.

When more than 60 percent of the inhabitants of a village use the nets, malaria rates usually drop sharply, Macdonald said.

Showalter said he would be traveling to Loropeni in southwest Burkina Faso to talk with local authorities about organizing a distribution there. He hopes that can be accomplished before the end of the year.

Macdonald, who began his career as a pediatrician and is now retired, once served as deputy assistant to President Ronald Reagan for drug abuse policy and director of the White House Drug Abuse Policy Office. He said the Somerled Foundation would continue its efforts to eliminate the spread of malaria.

‘‘There’s a whole big country and world that could use these nets,” he said. ‘‘We’re just going to do as much as we can.”

To help

For more information about the Somerled Foundation and what can be done to reduce the incidence of malaria in Burkina Faso, visit www.somerledfoundation.org⁄home.aspx or e-mail Ian Macdonald at ian@somerledfoundation.org.