SOS Helping Treat and Prevent Malaria in Ethiopia
Zeyineba Abba is a stay-at-home mom in Jimma, Ethiopia, who has been suffering from constant headaches, fatigue, muscle ache, vomiting and blurred vision. More than half of Ethiopia’s population lives in rural areas where access to health care is limited. Fortunately, there is a SOS Medical Centre in Zeyineba’s community.
After laboratory tests, Dr. Yimegnushal Mamo, the health officer at the facility, diagnosed Zeyinaba with malaria. The doctor insisted that Zeyineba and her family sleeps under a mosquito treated bed nets to prevent malaria, and to drain any stagnant water around their home.
“Malaria is one of the common diseases we treat here,” says Dr. Mamo. “The two peak transmission periods are between March to May, and September to December. Infections occur primarily due to change in altitude and the onset of the rainy season.”
According to the Ministry of Health, 75 per cent of Ethiopia’s land mass is susceptible to malaria. The National Strategic Plan for Malaria Control hopes to achieve near zero malaria deaths in the country’s endemic areas by the end of 2015. The most recent epidemic was in 2003-2004, where over 2 million cases and 3,600 deaths were recorded.
At the pharmacy in the SOS Medical Centre, Zeyineba picked up her antimalarial pills. “I would have been bed ridden if I had not come to the centre. My husband works fulltime, so my children would have been stranded.”
Dr. Mamo treats about 60 to 80 patients a day. The 38-year-old worked in a government run health centre before she joined SOS Medical Centre a year ago. “Working here is so humbling,” she says. “Serving orphaned and vulnerable children, vulnerable-care givers and their families – basically the underprivileged members of the society who would otherwise not afford decent medical care. It is my way of giving back.”
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