Dr. Richard sends this report from Charis-IMC, our Health Centre in Lira, north Uganda.
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Kisembo Ronald age 10, was admitted with bad malaria (we grade it +, ++, +++ and ++++ according to the number of Plasmodium Falciparum parasites in the blood film) Ronald was a 4+ with over 100 parasites per high power film. He was very sick and needed admission for intravenous quinine. After 4 doses he is now cured but his mum says he gets 3-4 attacks of malaria per year, missing school and has been admitted before. The family seem well educated but do not use nets and seem to view malaria as something that happens and not as a preventable disease.
70% of disease in Uganda is preventable (more than half is malaria) and we have 5,000 cases of malaria a week in a population of 50,000.
Just giving out nets is not enough. Education, monitoring and evaluation and checking that it is not just the man of the family using the net, as well retreating the net with insecticide are all part of the prevention plan.
Here you see Molly Awaco, one of our nurses looking after Ronald with his Mum on our ward at Charis-IMC.
