Malaria Be Gone!

While there is no cure or vaccine to eliminate it, malaria is a highly preventable and treatable disease but one that unfortunately accounts for nearly 1 million deaths a year and 250 million infections. Most of these people are living in Africa, and the Nyanza Province region in which we are living suffers from the highest rates of malaria in Kenya.

Last week we welcomed fellow Jake and Kama, employees and fellow Hoosiers natives from the LCMS World Mission, to meet on the Lutheran Malaria Initiative (LMI) in Kisumu. According to the LMI website, "The most effective methods currently being used to control malaria include proper diagnosis and prompt medical treatment, proper use of insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor residual spraying. To be successful these strategies require education about malaria and how to prevent and treat it. The Lutheran Malaria Initiative works through local partners to educate families on malaria, increase access to treatment, and provide prevention tools such as bed nets." The ELCK has been chosen as a partner to help carry out education, treatment, and prevention of the disease.

After some good planning meetings on the implementation of the initiative at Pr. Chuchu’s rural home in Atemo, we decided to get an informal sense of the net distribution for the surrounding village. We walked from homestead to homestead making a quick visit and asking them if they had ever received a net and if so whether or not it was in use. The answered showed that many people had either not received nets or were not using them properly.  Our surveying affirmed that a more concerted effort of net distribution and malaria education in the area is needed. 

With the hope to eliminate malaria deaths by 2015, we looking forward to help carry out this initiative with the ELCK and LMI.