It's a fight we must win

I haven't posted on this blog for a while. In that time my husband has had malaria and yours truly has also succumbed to this menace. In addition to hard earned money spent on drugs, we have lost valuable man hours forever.
Sometimes it seems like the fight against malaria is a losing one;but I know that is not true. It is a fight we must win because we can and should win. Malaria is preventable and treatable and as such it should be possible to handle it. The one thing we must not lose sight of is that, this disease has been effectively curbed in some nations.....statistics later. If it has been done before, it can be done again and again.
On a personal note, this week I am trying out a new insecticide I brought back from my trip to Abuja last week. If it works, I will let you know next week.
Till we meet again, stay malaria free

shalom

we can do it

How will this work? First a little background on the causes of malaria. Malaria is carried in the system of the female anopheles mosquito. It is transmitted through the bite of this little flying creature from one person to another. Mosquitoes breed mostly in stagnant water and thrive in dirty environments. They are so small they get into homes easily and attack humans wherever they are, especially at night. In some areas, mosquitoes bite at all hours of the day. They bite any exposed part of the body and leave the place itching slightly, and sometimes a small reddish rash develops. The mosquito can be killed quite easily. The plan here is that we work on our malaria eradication dream by both prevention and attack.

PREVENTION:

Keep our homes mosquito-free and make our immediate environment extremely hostile to mosquitoes. We can do this in several ways.

1. Mosquitoes die easily when the right type of insecticide is sprayed on them or in parts of the home where they are. These insecticides are sold in supermarkets and some fuel stations. Depending on how bad the scourge is in your neighborhood, you could spray your home every day or every few days. However, all doors, windows and external openings must be kept closed for an hour or two to allow the insecticide work properly. During this period the occupants of the house will have to stay out of this house. This may not be practicable on an ongoing basis for everybody. Besides, the period spent outside could easily expose the family or individual to mosquito bites outside.

2. Another less cumbersome but equally effective option is the use of nets. Nets can be installed on the windows and doors of a home to stop the mosquitoes from getting into the house at all. As an added measure people should sleep under insecticide treated mosquito nets. These offer by far the surest protection against mosquito bites when people are asleep. They not only protect, they also act as mosquito repellants; when mosquitoes go close to the nets they die from inhaling the insecticide, which is harmless to the person using the net. This is very good and should be encouraged in every home. However they may not be affordable to every family. Effort should be made by governments and well-meaning organizations and individuals to distribute mosquito nets to those who cannot afford it.

let us eradicate malaria

My malaria eradication diary.

Malaria is a worldwide menace that thrives mostly in the hot tropical regions of the world. It is the biggest killer of children and infants in the Africa. Statistics say that malaria kills a child every thirty seconds. That is a mind boggling figure; but that is not all. Malaria is a disease that affects all ages and not just children. It is deadly in adults as well; and every year millions of man hours are lost to malaria.

It is a debilitating illness that renders a person weak and ineffective. The most common symptoms are headache, feverishness, weakness; and in children, stomach ache which may include vomiting and or stooling. In children, if the fever is not quickly brought down it may lead to convulsions and ultimately to death. The death rate for adults is almost as high, especially in localities where healthcare is not readily or cheaply available. Although malaria drugs abound and are quite affordable, there are a lot of adulterated versions of most drugs. Unscrupulous merchants take advantage of the widespread nature f the disease to reproduce fakes of most malaria drugs for profit. This makes the matter more complicated because when people use these drugs they either die more quickly or other more serious complications arise from the usage of these fake drugs.

What then is the solution? Malaria is very easily treatable with the prompt administration of the right drugs. Nobody needs to die from malaria. More importantly, the old adage that prevention is better than cure applies readily to malaria. It is very preventable and can be completely eradicated, which is the purpose of this blog. How can malaria be prevented or stopped altogether from decimating our society? As with most things in life, the big dream has a smaller version. The dream is to make the world malaria free, but we will start small. We will start by making our homes malaria-free; then our communities and localities; then the states or regions where we live and on to our countries and continents and one day the dream will become a reality. The world will say goodbye to malaria forever.