The Buzz About Malaria

As a sustainable agricultural extension agent, my primary work in Peace Corps has taken place in fields and gardens.  Covered in dirt, I can usually be found chatting with farmers about vegetables and cereals.  Every once in a while though, I take time to remind my community that if they don't follow some basic health practices they'll fall ill and be taken out of the fields.  A perfect example of this is mosquito nets and malaria.  Last year, eleven of the hundred and seventeen people living in my village contracted malaria, only two of which occasionally slept under a mosquito net.  That's over ten percent of the community pulled away from the fields and the classroom because of a preventable disease.  Unless an individual goes to the health post, they are unlikely to diagnose an illness as malaria so it's likely that several others also contracted malaria unknowingly in my village. 

April is International Malaria Awareness Month, so Peace Corps Senegal has mobilized to promote malaria prevention educational activities for the past several weeks.  Most visibly, I helped with several mosquito net murals (keeping it simple since abstract concepts don't go over well here in rural Senegal).  A mosquito net game paired with basic malaria education was a hit at our Youth Leadership and Empowerment Camp in Koumbidia.  We also used the camp as a platform to teach how decorating mosquito nets make them more desirable and can be used as an income generating activity.  This past week, I taught the 'Grassroot Soccer Malaria' curriculum at the primary school in my neighboring village.  Through combining soccer and games with malaria lessons, the group of students and I discussed how malaria is preventable and a looming problem for Senegal. 

Malaria is rarely mentioned in the United States, but as the carriers of this infectious disease, mosquitoes remain the most deadly animal on the planet.  Mosquitoes carrying malaria kill nearly 1 million people a year, over 90% of which are in sub-Saharan Africa.  One out of five deaths of African children under the age of five is caused by malaria.  Every person in Senegal is at risk of contracting malaria, meaning it is a huge burden on the economy and national health care system. 

Preventable and treatable, Peace Corps Volunteers like myself educate our communities about the disease: the transmission of malaria, signs of malaria, and malaria prevention and  we also partner with international and local NGO’s, government agencies, and private corporations to execute and promote research, distribute LLINs, and encourage people to get tested when they show signs of malaria.

Even though malaria isn't a media-genic as Ebola, it is a much larger problem here in West Africa... and that's the buzz about malaria.