Mother’s vow to shield twins from malaria

The charming smiles from her healthy four-month old twin daughters are things she wishes to protect for life. At any cost.

The twins, Patricia Nduta and Racheal Wanjiru, like any other children born within the tropics are at a high risk of contracting malaria than their peers in the developed world.

And as World Malaria Day is marked today, 34-year-old Virginia Gathoni is not taking any chances; last week she acquired two Insecticide Treated Nets in Kawangware  to protect her bundles of joy from the deadly malaria.

“Knowing that my children sleep under a treated mosquito net every night brings peace to my mind,” she says. She got the ITN’s nets during her antenatal clinic visits.

This year’s theme, Achieving Progress and Impact on Malaria, calls for collective responsibility to achieve a malaria-free world.

A decade ago, Little Patricia and Racheal would have had at least one bout of malaria by their third month and with little chances of survival but thanks to advancement in prevention and treatment, they now stand a higher chance to celebrate their first birthday.

Ms Gathoni has taken up this year’s slogan, My Role, My Responsibility. She has vowed to have her entire family sleeping under a net.

The slogan further urges stakeholders, including the general public to get involved in prevention and management of the disease in their respective households.

Ms Gathoni’s six year old son David Ndun’gu also sleeps under a treated net every night.

She encourages the general public to be vigilant in ensuring family members are healthy by adopting such preventive measures and more, such as getting rid of breeding grounds near houses and having indoor spraying in areas prone to the parasite.

Health centres

In health centres where the nets are not available, she urges mothers to spare some coins to buy them from the shops. “It may be expensive but it saves you lots of sleepless nights rushing to hospital because of malaria,” she advises.

The abundance and survival of mosquitoes also depends on rainfall patterns, temperature and humidity. Malaria epidemics can occur when climate and other conditions suddenly favour transmission in areas where people have little or no immunity to malaria.

Locally, there is growing concern on the prevalence of the disease in both Western and Nyanza provinces that remain high burden areas of malaria.

However head of the Department of Disease Prevention and Control Dr Willis Akwale said scientists are carrying out research in the endemic areas to determine the reason for the high prevalence rate.

Public Health minister said ahead of World malaria Day: “Malaria is a disease whose control has the greatest impact on these MDGs and even non-health related ones like poverty reduction.” Her speech was read by Public Health Permanent Secretary Mark Bor.

Mrs Mugo allayed fears of counterfeit drugs in public health facilities citing that through the subsidised medicine initiative, the drugs were readily available and regular monitoring was carried out.

In many parts of the world, malaria parasites have developed resistance to a number of medicines, necessitating more stringent measures to deal with the disease, especially in rural areas.

Over the past decade, a new group of antimalarial known as artemesinin-based combination therapies or ACTs, has brought new hope in the fight against the disease.

In March, the government rolled out a national campaign to distribute 11 million insecticide treated bed nets to the population in malaria endemic areas in 80 districts.

World Health Organisation country representative, Dr Abdoulie Jack deaths caused by malaria as, ‘needless mortalities’ yet affordable malaria treatment is available in most, if not all, public health facilities.

“Malaria kills at least one child per minute yet it is both a treatable and preventable disease,” Dr Jack said adding there was need for concerted efforts to achieve near-zero death rate.

UNICEF Country director Olivia Yambi urged parents and guardians to be proactive in adopting preventive measures like initiating frequent use of treated bed nets, carrying out indoor residual spraying and clearing breeding grounds for malaria parasite.

“Prevent children from dying from malaria by taking them to the health centre or hospital whenever those have a fever,” Dr Yambi said.

“I can now focus on watching them grow into responsible young women because I have played my part,” Ms Gathoni concluded.