Mosquitoes Do Not Care About Social Distancing
While people are staying home and taking action to prevent the spread of COVID-19, mosquitoes are out in full force to unleash a devastating disease of their own: malaria.
According to Uganda’s Ministry of Health, there are around 25,000 cases of malaria reported daily in Uganda – with an average of 16 fatalities per day. Children under 5 years of age are the most vulnerable and account for half of all malaria-related deaths in the country. And yet, prevention is possible!
Families can significantly decrease their risk by sleeping under treated bed nets, applying mosquito-repellent soap or jelly, spraying insecticide, getting rid of stagnant water from dwellings and clearing nearby bushes.
Yet, the World Health Organization reports that 1 out of 4 children are not protected by mosquito nets or indoor spraying.
In Uganda and throughout Africa, mosquito nets and repellent are just as vital as masks are right now to protect vulnerable populations from disease.
Our students are missing the safety and security of their school dormitories (pictured above). Mosquito nets hang from the ceiling and are used at night to protect our students from malaria. At home, many children do not have a net or if they do – they are damaged with rips and holes offering little protection.
For $44 you can help safeguard a family against malaria and illuminate their nights for added safety with:
2 large insecticide-treated bed nets (multiple children often share a bed)
2 containers of mosquito-repellent body jelly (100 grams each)
2 bars of mosquito-repellent soap
A solar lamp (for security, kids can study and guardians can work at night)
If left untreated, malaria can lead to seizures, coma, permanent brain damage, deformities or death. Malaria also affects pregnancy and birth outcomes, cognition among school children, productivity and the nation’s economy as a whole.
So many of our supported families are vulnerable since most of them do not have mosquito nets or the nets have holes beyond repair (as shown below). In fact, since the quarantine began, several of our students have contracted malaria and received urgent treatment. As you can imagine, this has put an added stress on already struggling families. With the supplies listed above, we can all sleep better at night knowing that our kids are that much safer.
We would also like to train our guardians under The Family Empowerment Program to learn how to make malaria-repellent soap and have received proposals from Uganics and Embibo Initiative to review.
In addition, we are including a solar lamp after learning that many of our students were using candles or paraffin lamps to study at night, which is incredibly dangerous! Will you help protect our students both day and night?
