April 25, 2014 (yesterday) was World Malaria Day. So I figured I should write a blog post about malaria, this won't be overly exciting, but I'm trying to write a blog more often and this is an important issue here. So a lot of you reading this probably have never had to think much about malaria in your daily lives. You probably don’t know someone personally who has died from malaria or even someone who has had malaria. I’ll admit it, before coming to Mozambique, I knew malaria was a big problem in a lot of the world, and killed a lot of people but I never really had to worry about it living in the United States, since it was considered eliminated in the US in 1951.
But since joining the Peace Corps and moving
to Mozambique it has been something I have had to deal with. I had to start taking malaria prophylaxis
(malaria meds to help prevent getting it), had to start sleeping under mosquito
nets, and started using mosquito repellent more frequently and not just because
the mosquitos are annoying, but because they can get me sick. I have also had to deal with the consistent occurrences
of the question, “Is it malaria?” or “Oh you had malaria” when I tell someone I
am or was sick recently. Here malaria is
so common, most people think any combination of the symptoms or anytime someone
is sick, it means they have malaria.
Toward the beginning of my class at the IFP, we played a game “I’ve
never” where I or someone read a statement and if you had never done that you
stepped into the circle. It was a get to
know you activity as well as practicing some English. I read the phrase, “I’ve never had Malaria”
and I think only one of my students stepped into the middle of the circle along
with me. I saw the look on some of their
faces at the fact that I’d never had malaria, they were very surprised. Then last week I did a whole lesson on malaria. We listened to a TedTalk by Sonia Shah about
malaria and discussed some of her points.
Part way through one of my students raised his hand and said, “Trainer,
I remember you said you never had malaria, do you not have mosquitos in the
United States?” I explained that we had
mosquitos but malaria was not a problem for us anymore, it used to be a problem but it was
eliminated, like many other countries. Some of them knew this already, but others were again very surprised that before coming to Mozambique I didn't sleep under a mosquito net, or that I didn't have to worry about malaria.
Malaria is curable and preventable and yet a huge problem in a lot of the world. Why? People know about malaria and how to prevent it, but many people feel that it is just a part of life and they don't need to do much to prevent it, because everyone gets it and over time they start to develop some immunity to it, so it isn't as bad. But the majority of people dying from malaria are children under 5 who have not developed this immunity. And by not taking precautions against it, the rest of the population is adding to the prevelence of these deaths. How so, you might ask? Well Malaria is spread from person to person through mosquito bites. So if a 35 year old man who has had malaria multiple times in his life and has developed some immunity to it, gets malaria again but it doesn't really affect him much and then a mosquito bites him and then bites his 3 month old granddaughter, this is how she can get malaria and since she is so young and doesn't have any sort of immunity to it, it could kill her. I'm not saying that everyone thinks that they shouldn't take precautions because malaria is just a part of life, and most people I've met here in Mozambique don't feel this way, but it is a common thought throughout the world that is affected by it.
Mosquito nets are a huge prevention tool, yet many people do not use them. Even when the local hospitals hand them out or sell them for very cheap often people use them for other things. For example, in a nearby town, where some of my students are from (and told me about this problem), people often use mosquito nets as fishing nets. A large population of this town makes their living selling fish they catch, and not only that, they get their own food this way. So when given this nice big net or when they buy one, that is supposed to help them prevent malaria, they decided to start using it to fish and get more product and food for their families. It is common to see mosquito nets here and in other countries used for a variety of different things, other than malaria prevention. So how do you convince a population that it is more important to protect themselves from malaria, than to improve their fishing abilities, thus making more money and having more food. I'm not entirely sure. But I hope someone figures that out someday and malaria can be completely eradicated. It's so strange to me that we have this illness that we know where it comes from, how to cure it and how to prevent it and yet in 2012, an estimated 627,000 people died of malaria (CDC.com). Again, I don't know how to fix this, but hopefully someday malaria will not be an issue anywhere.
So now
for a little education and facts for you.
- About 91% of malaria-related deaths in 2010 occurred in Africa. The majority of these deaths were children under 5.
- Malaria is spread from person to person by mosquito bites. (A mosquito bites an infected person and gets infected with the parasite, then bites another person and transmits the parasite)
- Malaria is spread by some species of female Anopheles mosquito, and these usually bite between the hours of 9pm and 5am
- Approximately 1,500-2,000 cases of malaria are reported every year in the US, almost all in recent travelers. Reported malaria cases reached a 40-year high of 1,925 in 2011. (cdc.gov/malaria/about/facts.html)
- Of the species of Anopheles mosquitoes found in the US, the three species that were responsible for malaria transmission prior to elimination are still prevalent; thus there is a constant risk that malaria could be reintroduced in the US (cdc.gov/malaria/about/facts.html)
- Malaria is preventable and sleeping under an insecticide-treated mosquito net every night is one of the best ways to protect yourself and others from malaria. (I recently heard an interesting statistic… If 80% of a community slept under a mosquito net every night, malaria could be eliminated from that community.)
- Malaria is curable. Medicine is often taken 2 times a day for 3 days but it depends on the weight and age of the person.
- As of 2013, 111 countries are free from malaria
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