Malaria – a disease carried via mosquitoes – causes 1.5 to 2.7 million deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Cover Africa, a campus student organization that works to raise malaria awareness, hosted its bi-annual concert on Oct. 28 at the Nines.

Members of Cover Africa, a student group dedicated to fighting malaria in Africa, spent a night sleeping on the arts quad in September — a symbolic act to demonstrate the rampant spread of malaria in many regions in Africa. Many student groups, like Cover Africa, use the arts quad as a means of spreading information as they advocate for different causes.

Weekends start on Thursday at Cornell. The underclassmen make their way off campus, sneak into parties or packed bars, get wasted and then stumble their way back into dorms screaming out random obscenities at 3:00 a.m. when others are trying to sleep.

This Thursday, do things a little differently.

Cover Africa is hosting a live concert to raise money to fight malaria. The line-up includes Cornell student bands One Trick Pony, Elsa and the awesomeAwesomes and Hype City Kings and the Ithaca rapper Money Mars — promising a diverse set to liven up your night.

“Every 30 seconds a child dies from malaria,” read one of the many signs lining the path across the Arts Quad. A bed net, used to prevent mosquito bites, hung from a nearby tree. And a conspicuous white tent was erected close by.

All these were put up by Cover Africa for the group’s 28-hour sleep-out on the Arts Quad. The socially conscious sleepover, the fourth since its inception in Dec. 2006, aims to raise both funds for and awareness about the malaria epidemic in Africa.

“The sleep-out is symbolic because malaria spreads at night — when people are sleeping,” said Ojus Patil ’11, treasurer of Cover Africa.