Tuesday 2 July 2013

Anti-malarials - a genuine life-saver

For those of us who have got the anti-malaria drug Malarone, today was the first day of our course of tablets. I made the mistake of reading the potential side-effects. I concluded that suffering from malaria must be awful if the potential side effects of Malarone are so bad. But, as the NHS website remarks:

 A medicine is only made available to the public if the clinical trials have shown that the benefits of taking the medicine outweigh the risks
I am reassured by this. I think.

Malaria is awful. When I spoke to the Nurse who was sorting out my vaccinations and preventative medication, she said, in quite a matter-of-fact way that "basically, malaria causes your red blood cells to explode". Erm... But, the reality is that

in Burundi, malaria is responsible for half the deaths of children under the age of five. 
That's a tragic statistic. I don't know what the prevalence of malaria is in the areas we are going to. Bujumbura is the capital, so I imagine that they have good access to medical provision. Gitega is at a higher altitude so maybe there aren't so many mosquitoes up there? I don't know, but I'm going to find out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rajkamalaich/6802868112/sizes/z/in/photostream/

And it's humbling and sobering to think that we can pick up anti-malarials over the counter (with a prescription) and have the money to buy them. What if we lived in a deprived country? Would we be able to buy this preventative medication?

Malaria is awful. It can be prevented. I am grateful for the NHS. I want to help those who don't have access to such a service. Imagine a world without malaria.

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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous3 July 2013 at 10:40

    Hi, Matt
    I am very pleased to have stumbled across this blog. Well done and we hope you have a blessed trip.
    Do have a chat with my daughter, Abigail Fogg (Irving until she married Mike Fogg this time last year). She was a St Mary's mission partner for three years and has direct personal (painful) experience of both malaria and another mosquito-borne disease, dengue fever. Anti-malarial prophylaxis cannot be taken long-term so is only possible for short-term visitors

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    Replies
    1. Unknown3 July 2013 at 11:43

      Hi Sharon,
      Thanks for your comment - I didn't realise that about anti-malarial prophylaxis (shows how little I know about this horrible illness). I will make sure I find out more when I'm out in Burundi. Hopefully I'll have the chance to chat with Abigail when we're back too.

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  2. Anonymous4 July 2013 at 10:27

    You're not alone, Matt, don't worry!
    Blessings

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  3. Unknown5 July 2013 at 21:47

    Chatting with Bosco and Peter J today, I found out that the indigenous people have a natural immunity to malaria. However, children don't have a fully developed immune system and the immune system of women during pregnancy is reduced, so these two groups are susceptible to malaria.

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