Ever since the Stomp Out Malaria conference in Senegal (@stompoutmalaria) whenever anyone says malaria in a group of volunteers they all look at me. When I had a prolonged fever a few weeks back I was worried that my mephloquine could have somehow failed me. I mean, how embarrassing would it be for Malaria Casey to actually get malaria? Luckily. (And I never thought I would say this) it was a sinus infection.
Peers' stares and personal neurosis aside, I think we've got the ball rolling. The Community Health and AIDS Task force is on board with doing a Malaria Month campaign in April. The packet is almost in a drafted state and will be finalized/distributed after our January meeting.
I've worked pre-service training and in service training over the past few weeks. I even got to watch the health trainees teach other trainees about malaria and business related malaria prevention activities. They did a creative mosquito net activity at the local primary school, too.
During pre-service training we met with a nurse that is working on studying the effects of asymptomatic malaria carriers on a community. They are testing people without symptoms and treating those that test positive. I still want to go and visit the testing site for the malaria vaccine in Burkina! I need to look into it.
On a personal note, I'll be teaching more people how to make neem cream tonight. It takes about a half hour and is nearly effortless. Just need about 500cfa ($1 US) for soap and shea butter then you need free water and free neem leaves. Poof! Mosquitoes be gone! It looks a terrible atomic green at first, but it looks more like lotion by the end (which makes for a much easier sell).
At any rate, I've got malaria on my mind (but not in it). Cerebral malaria is no joke.
If you want to know more about Peace Corps' malaria prevention activities across Africa check out Stomp Out Malaria on twitter.com and tumblr.com
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Airtel Burkina Faso.
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