Childhood Malaria: Little Targets for a Dread Disease

GHEI Community Health Workers hanging a bednet for a father and his child

Each year around the world an estimated 500-800 million cases of malaria are diagnosed. One and a half million of these cases result in death. Most of these deaths take place in sub-Saharan Africa. And most of the people who die there - an incredible 90% of them -are children under five. Nearly every source you read about childhood malaria is quick to cite the terrible statistic that one African child dies of malaria every 45 seconds.

The good news is that malarial deaths have been cut by 30% in Africa over the past decade. The bad news, of course, is that too many people are still dying of this preventable and treatable disease, and most of them are small children.

Very young children and pregnant women are the most vulnerable victims of malaria. Babies don't have a fully developed immune system and pre-schoolers haven't yet developed resistance to the disease, which makes these age groups so susceptible. Early diagnosis and treatment of the disease improves the prognosis for young children. Beginning treatment within 24 hours of the first show of symptoms produces the best results (WHO).

Pregnant women, too, have a reduced immune system, and malaria can induce anemia in the prospective mother and bring on delivery too early. It can also cause low infant birth weight and even death of the baby. Anti-malarial drugs can reduce the transmission of malaria from mother to child.

For children who have had malaria, the need is not over once they have recovered. Repeated bouts of malaria cause many missed school days, and a child may never be able to make up these gaps in their education. What's more, the anemia associated with frequent malaria saps a child's strength and ability to concentrate and do mental processing. Their capacity to learn and be successful in school is often greatly diminished. A child who is also malnourished feels these effects even more and may not respond to anti-malaria drugs, becoming even more vulnerable to the other two big child killers in Africa: diarrhea and pneumonia. Children who have had malaria need continued care, understanding and support.

It has taken the developed world a long time to recognize the seriousness of malaria, probably because relatively few westerners ever experience this disease. Malaria has risen to the top of the world-health hit list only in the past decade or so, as the result of some tireless campaigning on the part of various NGOs and others working in malaria zones, who have seen first-hand how devastating this disease can be to whole communities. But even with the growing realization that malaria is a killer to be reckoned with and the availability of new drugs to combat this disease, there are still big obstacles to bringing people the relief they need. For one thing, malaria is caused by a parasite that can develop resistance to medications that were once effective. For another, the newest, most effective treatments are usually out of the reach of poor people - either too expensive or simply not available.

The best answer right now is prevention, and that takes two things - educating people about how they get malaria and providing insecticide-treated sleeping nets and showing people how to use them. GHEI's Community Health Workers undertake both of these important tasks as part of their daily work. Our CHWs aim to educate our communities on the risk of malaria and how the virus is contracted. They conduct extensive spot-checks thoughout our communities, ensuring that people have malaria nets and that they are using them properly.

Young beneficiaries of GHEI's malaria prevention program

One of the big obstacles in making progress towards the Millennium Development Goals is that if you fail to meet one of them, the chances of meeting the others get slimmer. In this case, if the international community lags in its efforts to combat malaria and other diseases that decimate children in Africa (MDG 6), high levels of child mortality will continue to loom (MDG 4) and children will die before having the chance to complete their primary education (MDG 2).

The premise of GHEI's work is that a whole community will reap the benefits of investing in its children. Children who sleep under a bednet, who have access to basic medical care, who learn the benefits of soap-and-water handwashing, who attend school regularly and have out-of-school support - these children have the best chance of living out their years in good health, enjoying the fruits of their education, and contributing to their community throughout a long adulthood. This is what we're working for at GHEI and what we invite you to support.

Sources:

International Medical Corps. Fighting Africa’s Biggest Child-Killer: a Q & A. Online: http://internationalmedicalcorps.org/page.aspx?pid=472

Malaria Consortium. Malaria: The Challenges. http://www.malariaconsortium.org/pages/malaria_challenges.htm

World Health Organization. Malaria. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs094/en/index.html

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