Lemashol receives medicine from the local dispensary but it does not cure him completely so the malaria always returns. Taking him to hospital for treatment has also been expensive, Sylvia adds.
Malaria is the biggest killer on the African continent, with 90 children in Kenya and across sub-Saharan Africa dying from the disease every day.
World Vision is distributing mosquito nets to help stem the rate of infection and constructing dispensaries to offer treatment to those already suffering from the disease. Yet more needs to be done before the African continent has seen the last of malaria.
Mary Kisio, the Kenyan Government’s Public Health Officer in Narok, says dispensaries still need laboratory services so that proper diagnoses can be made. There also needs to be indoor residual spraying for the next five years coupled with an intensive distribution of treated mosquito nets if the malaria-carrying mosquito is to be totally wiped out, she adds.
Africa’s next big killers are HIV and Aids. Many of the victims are children who have inherited the virus from their HIV-positive mothers because the drugs that could have prevented it from being passed on during pregnancy are available to only nine per cent of the HIV-positive women in poor countries.
That’s why aid agencies are pressing governments to meet the Millennium Development Goals to halve global poverty by 2015. The goals include pledges to reduce the child mortality rate and halt the spread of HIV and Aids.
For Johannes Gadaba and his wife Medhanit Tessema, it’s hard to watch their adopted son Mamush grow up with HIV. The five-year-old joined the family when his mother and father – Johannes’ brother – died three years ago. Mamush tested positive for HIV not long after their deaths.
“We are the only two people in this village who know about Mamush. If our neighbours knew, they wouldn’t allow their children to play with him,” Johannes said.
But Johannes and Medhanit, both Christians, have vowed to raise Mamush in spite of his uncertain future and the frequent drought that makes feeding the family, including their other children, even more difficult.
“Even when his father was alive we loved Mamush,” Johannes said. “And we love him now -- just as much as our other children. Every day is a struggle for our family but we pray that Mamush will live for many years, for as long as we can continue to care for him. We pray to God to give us the strength, even when there is nothing to eat.”
Mosquito nets are just one of the ethical gifts available from World Vision’s ‘Must have gifts’ catalogue for Mother’s Day at www.musthavegifts.org. To find out more about World Vision’s international development work, visit www.worldvision.org.uk
