Taming Malaria

Malaria’s biggest carrier |Image courtesy of Unsplash

When we lived in Ivory Coast and Tanzania, people were constantly coming down with malaria. The guards who worked outside of people’s homes and businesses were most at risk, staying out all night during rainy season and dry. Children and the elderly were also vulnerable. I’ll never forget the day that our young guard approached me with tears in his eyes and said that his infant niece had passed away after being hospitalized with malaria.

Spraying for malaria | Image courtesy of Unsplash

It used to be the biggest killer in Tanzania before AIDS. Malaria was still ranked as the number one cause of death in 2005 on the island of Zanzibar. Then the government launched a campaign to eradicate malaria by adopting a three-pronged strategy. Testing became more rigorous so people could be treated as soon as they contracted malaria, and they started spraying every house in every village with insecticide to kill malaria-bearing mosquitos. Bed nets were distributed to all pregnant woman on the island and to families with children. As a result of these efforts, Zanzibar saw a 95% reduction in malaria cases in two years.

In mainland Tanzania, 1.7 million pregnant women contracted malaria each year and 20% of maternal deaths were linked to the disease. An initiative in 2008 provided five million bed nets for every child under age five so they could sleep safely at night. The government also sprayed potential water sources regularly against mosquito larvae.

Public education campaigns were critical for the eradication of malaria in Zanzibar. People had to be convinced to use bed nets regularly and to seek treatment as soon as they or their children developed fevers. Tanzania celebrates World Malaria Day every April in hopes of duplicating Zanzibar’s achievement and eradicating it on the mainland. But with a much larger population and land mass and varying climate zones, it has proved to be an elusive goal.