Over one million people around the world die annually from malaria. Ninety per cent of those deaths occur in African children under five years old. According to the World Health Organization, malaria is on the rise in Africa. World Vision is working in Africa and around the world to prevent the disease from spreading.

Malaria
Malaria is transmitted by female Anopheles mosquitoes infected with the Plasmodium (malarial) parasite. When an infected mosquito bites someone, the parasite enters that person’s bloodstream, destroying red blood cells. Most people get malaria while they sleep because mosquitoes feed between dusk and dawn. 

Symptoms
Initially people suffer from flu-like symptoms including fever, chills, headaches, vomiting, and malaise. If left untreated, symptoms can escalate to seizures, mental confusion, kidney failure, respiratory failure, comas and, ultimately, death. Symptoms vary and can occur as early as seven days after the initial bite or up to several months later. Children are more susceptible to the parasite because their immune systems aren’t fully developed. 

No Cure
There is no cure or vaccine for malaria, only prevention measures such as bed nets and mosquito repellant, as well as medications to treat symptoms. The most effective defense against mosquito bites is insecticide-treated mosquito bed nets. In fact, studies show bed nets reduce malaria by 50 per cent. 

African Children Are More Vulnerable
Inadequate access to information about malaria prevention has made it difficult for many African families to learn how to protect themselves. Poor families often can’t afford insecticide-treated bed nets for their children or medication to treat the symptoms of malaria. 

What World Vision Doing
World Vision distributes thousands of insecticide-treated bed nets through health clinics across Africa and other parts of the world. In the Samuye district of Tanzania, where World Vision has been working for the past 12 years, 2,000 World Vision-sponsored children attend “Village Health Days” organized by World Vision staff to teach them how malaria spreads, how to identify symptoms, and the importance of going to a doctor immediately for treatment. 

Click here to send mosquito nets to children in Africa.