MALARIA

It’s the rain season and at this time of the year we experience heavy showers nearly every day or night. The roads have loads of water running down them with puddles everywhere. The children are having great fun playing in the water. However, many roads have become mud tracks, the puddles are deep thick brown sludge and the rivers have eroded deep gouges where the rainwater has washed away the ground and are full of rubbish.

The densely packed community of Kawama

The community has to walk through this and the children play in it. It is a breeding ground for many diseases including malaria.

Children playing in a rubbish strewn water channel

The road into Kawama with a Government School in the background

Malaria is found of many parts of the world and especially here in Sub-Saharan Africa. The disease is caused by a tiny single celled protozoan that cannot survive outside of its host (mainly humans). There are five species of this protozoa worldwide of which plasmodium falciparum is the one responsible for most deaths globally and unfortunately is the one most prevalent here in Africa. This malaria parasite can only infect two creatures, female mosquitos of the anopheles genus and humans.

The mosquitos breed in stagnant and dirty water and are more prevalent from dusk to dawn as they seek out a human to bite for blood and food. When they bite they transfer the malaria parasite and infect the person. The parasite then travels rapidly to the liver and from there to the red blood cells. These red blood cells are destroyed and at this point the clinical symptoms of malaria start to show. These can include fever, headaches, sickness, tiredness and one minute being very hot and sweaty then the next shivering and coldness. Severe malaria can manifest itself to a coma and severe breathing problems. Cerebral malaria is when the symptoms affect the brain as in a coma.

According the World Health Organisation there were 212 million reported new cases of malaria worldwide in 2015 and 90% of these were in the African region and the most shocking statistic is that there were 429,000 deaths worldwide and again 92% of these were in Africa. Children are recorded as being the most susceptible to the illness.

As the early symptoms are very general and are often found in many illnesses such as colds or general sickness, the usual reaction for the local population is that any illness is called “malaria” so often tests are not done. A visit to a clinic or local hospital is generally free or a minimal cost (as little as 1 Kwacha, about .08 pence). Malaria is often easily diagnosed with a simple “prick” test where a small drop of blood is deposited onto a pre-bought slide and the answer will be available within 10-15 minutes but this of course costs money so it not done routinely. Malaria, if diagnosed quickly, is easily treatable with several different treatments.

Mosquitos breed on damp and wet conditions and prefer dirty stagnant water. This is just the condition that is found around a lot of Zambia at this time of year. Rubbish is often thrown into the streets and this just gets washed into heaps as the rains come. There is very little drainage in the compounds where we work. Kawama is one example where there are very few if any tarmac roads and just gravel or mud tracks. Children are left to play in the roads and water.

 

Children sitting, playing and even drinking the water

Unfortunately it is not unknown to see people using the ditches and water channels as rubbish dumps, places to chuck dirty water or even using them as toilets. Children sit and play in them and as often they have no running water in the homes, these channels are used to collect water for the house and even drink it. This being said it is not surprising that the population suffers badly from all sorts of water born diseases.

Mosquito nets help a great deal, as long as they are used, as the female mosquito is more active from early evening until dawn. Many of the homes do not have nets to sleep under or possibly there are too many people in the home to afford nets. Of course many homes have one or two single rooms and culturally the cooking is done outside so most people including children, are outside at dusk.

Education is also very important in teaching people that malaria is a preventable disease. Trying to support the community and teaching them to keep the area clean and not throwing rubbish out into the roads would help, along with using a clean water supply and not playing in drainage channels. Sleeping under nets at night are also another great way to avoid being bitten. Education also is important in making sure that when any symptoms appear then the patient is given an early and correct diagnosis so that treatment can begin as soon as possible.

To help prevent children from contracting malaria we give out mosquito nets from time to time. If you’d like to purchase a mosquito net to be given to a vulnerable family, visit our Alternative Gift store here. (http://www.beyondourselves.co.uk/donate/alternative-gifts/item/3/2/mosquito-net/?a=sl)