Mosquito Nets
Posted by David Griffin - Brunswick Coastal Rotary Club
Save a Life for $6
This child is one of 260 residents of the Mbabaali School for Orphans in Uganda, where malaria nets have been in desperately short supply. Thanks to a fundraiser along with a silent auction supported generously by a capacity crowd in September, the Brunswick Coastal Rotary Club was able to send enough nets to the orphanage so that each child will now sleep under one. Malaria claims the lives of 483,000 children every year -- 90 percent of them in Africa -- while accounting for half of preventable absenteeism in African schools as well as learning disabilities. PDG Carolyn Johnson and Foundation Chair Peter Johnson visited the Mbabaali School during their recent trip to Uganda and assisted the Kajjansi Rotary Club with distribution of the nets.
At about $6 apiece, the nets are the most cost-effective way to prevent malaria among African youth, many of whom have compromised health due to other conditions, such as HIV infection. The disease is transmitted by the bite of an infected female Anopheles mosquito. This bite introduces the parasites from the mosquito's saliva into a person's blood. The parasites then travel to the liver where they mature and reproduce. Medicine to treat the disease isn't always available in areas where poverty is rampant, and in some cases malaria is proving resistant to drugs.
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