Malaria Awareness

If you remember from last year around this time I had written a blog post about malaria. April 25th is World Malaria Month so Peace Corps has turned April into Malaria month. I thought I'd use this post to refresh your minds and share more about the disease.

Malaria continues to be a crisis throughout much of Africa. Every 45 seconds a child dies from the disease. What's worse, malaria is completely preventable and curable if people would sleep under mosquito nets. If you do contract malaria you can go to a health center or hospital and it can be easily treated. Because malaria feels like the flu, many do not know they have malaria or they wait to long before going to visit a doctor. Malaria has been eradicated throughout many regions outside this continent with the use of insecticides, medicines, and mosquito nets. This disease is transmitted only by a special kind of mosquito- called the Anopheles mosquito- which primarily bites at night.

Compared to the rest of Africa, the percentage of people who get malaria in Ethiopia is low. Still, malaria can be found in 75% of Ethiopia. Now we're trying to completely eliminate the disease from the country. Hopefully this becomes a reality sooner than later. Much of Ethiopia has a high elevation making malaria non existent in those areas. Mosquitos can't get above a certain altitude. In the last few years however, as a consequence of global warming, cases of malaria have been reported at higher elevations than normal. Living in the South malaria is a bigger concern because the elevation is lower here. Addis Ababa for example, the third highest city in the world, lies at 2,400 meters, whereas Hawassa, the capital city of the South and an area that I frequent often has an altitude of 1,685 meters. It may not seem like quite a difference, but when I first arrived in Ethiopia I definitely felt the change in altitude and it took a few days for the altitude sickness to go away. There's no malaria in Addis while in Hawassa it is quite prevalent. Because I often go to Hawassa I do my best to remember to take my malaria pills. I always sleep under the mosquito nets the hotels provide and I always spray insect repellant on. The government is working to make malaria a disease of the past. Health clinics throughout the country pass out mosquito nets to communities in rural areas. Without the proper training, though, and the lack of information, many people don't know how to use the nets and use them for other purposes that won't help them against malaria. One use I've seen is using the netting as a chicken coop.

What are Peace Corps Volunteers doing? One of the goals for health volunteers is to work on malaria awareness. These volunteers work closely with the health centers in their communities. There is also an Africa-wide initiative known as STOMP. In Ethiopia, we have regional coordinators that work closely with STOMP to spread the latest news about malaria throughout their region and keep their volunteers updated on the latest malaria activities they can do in their communities.

This month I used my English clubs to spread awareness about malaria. Even though there have been very few cases of malaria in Butajira, it is still possible to get it. I want my students to know what causes malaria, what they can do to prevent it, and what they should do if they start to get symptoms. Hopefully, by giving people information about the deadly consequences of not using a mosquito net and other prevention methods, malaria can be eradicated in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.