World Malaria Day

This past week, on April 25th, people in many countries celebrated World Malaria Day. Malaria, a disease that has been eradicated in the United States for many years (Malaria eradication as told by The Seven Dwarves may be a helpful resource here ), still plagues the poorest countries all over the world and is one of the number one killers of children and pregnant women here in Senegal. While World Malaria Day may have gone unnoticed in the U.S. (I don’t remember every hearing about it back home), Peace Corps volunteers all over Senegal were working to raise awareness in their communities.

To prepare our families, my training group and I did a small activity to underline the importance of sleeping under an insecticide treated net every night (pictured below). Long-Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets (or LLINs) are by far the most cost-effective way to help prevent malaria in communities. The female anopheles mosquito, the only type responsible for transmitting malaria, feeds primarily at night so getting every member of a household to sleep under an LLIN every night has the potential to drastically reduce the number of people getting infected with malaria every year. LLINs are available to families for free or highly subsidized through a campaign called Universal Coverage and in many parts of Senegal, access to an LLIN is not always the biggest barrier.

Peace Corps, one of a few major actors working to eradicate Malaria in Senegal, asked the trainees in the health program to lead a demonstration on the proper way to repair and care for an LLIN. As you can imagine, LLINs are not effective if they have holes, are dirty, or have been poorly maintained and lost potency over the years. Any holes should be sewn immediately, nets should be washed with ordinary soap (not detergent or bleach), and hung in the shade. You should also avoid over-washing your net and try to wash it gently while still removing all dirt.

To convey this message to our families, we translated and rehearsed the necessary dialogue in Pulaar, gathered our supplies (including a very old and damaged mosquito net), and set to work explaining and sewing. While, our families certainly already knew how to wash and sew, I can’t help but feel like we still helped our families by reiterating the message and highlighting that Malaria is still a problem that people around the world are talking about. If nothing else, seeing three Americans sew up an old net removed any stigma they might have about hiding old or damaged nets rather than making them useful again.

This was definitely a highlight of the training process for me so far. More people get sick with Malaria in the South where I will be serving and with the rainy season coming up soon after I arrive in village, I could very quickly be confronted with a harsh reality about Malaria in Senegal. I am looking forward to planning similar programs at my permanent site and seeing where I can best serve my community in the fight against Malaria. For more information, check out http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/worldmalariaday/. Thanks for reading and Happy Trails!