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A UMNS Feature
By Phileas Jusu*

5:00 P.M. EST May 12, 2011 | FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (UMNS)

Bintu Kamara poses with her newborn daughter and her
6-year-old son, Hassan. Hassan’s twin sister, Hassanatu, died of malaria at age 5. A UMNS photo by Phileas Jusu.
View in Photo Gallery

Bintu Kamara has lost three of her seven children to malaria.

One daughter, Mariatu, the twin sister of Fatu Koroma, died when she was only a week old. She had suffered a high fever, a common symptom of malaria. Another daughter, Hassanatu, died at age 5 from “wam body” – a common Sierra Leonean Creole expression for high fever. Hassanatu’s twin brother survived. A third child, also one of a set of twins, likewise died from malaria.

Now, armed with the knowledge that mosquito bites can cause “wam body” and a new insecticide-treated bed net hung by United Methodist volunteers who arrived at her home less than 10 hours after she delivered her seventh child, Kamara’s plight of losing her children to malaria may have ended.

The 30-year-old mother learned the connection between malaria and mosquitoes last November when The United Methodist Church, in partnership with the government of Sierra Leone, the United Nations Foundation and other international partners, donated more than 600,000 nets throughout the country. In the Bo District, where Kamara and her family live, the church’s Imagine No Malaria initiative helped mobilize 3,700 volunteers to distribute more than 300,000 nets and provide education on the disease.

In Africa, another child dies from malaria every 45 seconds. Imagine No Malaria is The United Methodist Church’s initiative to end deaths and suffering from malaria in Africa by 2015. The effort incorporates prevention, treatment, education and communication.

“Each time I lost a child, I always thought it was a fate from God or a curse from the twins and looked forward to when I would have babies that were not twins,” Kamara said. Her tiny new daughter was born alone.

Kamara learned about malaria during the November campaign. But her family did not receive nets for their house because family members leave home very early in the morning to sell goods in the local market and do not return until late in the evening.

The family received bed nets after volunteers received information from a neighbor who was passionate about protecting the health of the newborn baby in the heavily mosquito-infested community of Kekula Street in Central Bo.

“I am happy that I have at last received a net today,” Kamara said with a sign of relief. “My babies will no longer die of malaria.”

However, simply using the nets may not end the woes for her family. A huge pool of stagnant, dirty water – a highly productive breeding ground for mosquitoes – stands near their home.

Pools of stagnant water in Freetown, Sierra Leone, provide fertile breeding grounds for the mosquitos that carry malaria.
A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. View in Photo Gallery

People in the neighborhood do not see any danger to their health from the pool. This illustrates Dr. Amara Jambai’s contention that people have to be informed repeatedly that receiving the nets alone may not protect them from malaria. They also need to learn about other causes of the disease, as well as how to recognize and treat it, and be prepared to address them.

Jambai, Sierra Leone’s director of disease prevention and control, was responsible for coordinating the November anti-malaria campaign. During a recent post-campaign meeting in Freetown, the capital city, he said only continuous social mobilization will yield the desired result.

Sierra Leone is now in the monitoring and evaluation phase of the malaria-fighting effort. United Methodist health workers will be working in the coming months with the government health ministry to ensure that communities where nets were distributed use them effectively.

Jambai is full of praise for The United Methodist Church, rating it the “best partner” in the country’s anti-malaria campaign.

“In an environment like ours where we have a high illiteracy level, the only way you can get information across is in a sustained manner,” he said. “So, I’ll encourage the UMC to do much more of that.”

*Jusu is a United Methodist communicator with the Sierra Leone Annual (regional) Conference.

News media contact: Kathy Noble, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.