Despite being a diagnosable and curable disease, malaria remains a global health issue. In 2018, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported 228 million cases of malaria, resulting in 405,000 deaths globally.
In order to stop the spread of malaria, there are a number of tried and tested strategies that can be implemented. Here are some of the best ways to prevent the spread of disease.
Increase access to mosquito nets
Mosquito nets are one of the most effective and cheapest ways of preventing malaria transmission. The female Anopheles mosquito, which transmits malaria, mostly bites at night. Therefore it is vital for people to be protected while they sleep to prevent mosquito bites and the consequent spread of malaria.
A mosquito net works by providing a protective layer to stop an infected mosquito from getting in close contact with a person and biting. This is a simple solution, however for families in remote or rural communities, access to mosquito nets can be difficult.
Improve diagnostics and treatment in vulnerable communities
As a disease that can be easily treated, access to healthcare is vital in fighting this disease. If not diagnosed or treated early, malaria can be fatal, particularly in infants and young children. Improving the diagnosis rate and availability of treatment within rural communities is pivotal to preventing the spread of disease.
At ChildFund, we believe that everyone should have access to quality healthcare, and are working to improve access for vulnerable children and families.
Provide a nutritious diet to strengthen children’s immune systems
Nutrition is vital to keeping any child healthy, as it helps the body fight infection and disease. Unfortunately, many families living in rural communities have low household incomes, and can’t always afford the optimal variety of food required to build a healthy immune system.
ChildFund works in partnership with rural health clinics to deliver child and maternal health programs directly to parents. This includes providing advice on child nutrition, preventable childhood disease, and child development. When coupled with growth monitoring, it is possible to spot the signs of malnutrition in children early, and before it has a lasting impact on their health. These programs play an active role in keeping children healthy and preventing malnutrition in the first place.
Educate parents and community leaders on how to prevent malaria
Educating parents and community leaders about malaria is an effective way to help stop the spread. This knowledge empowers adults with the knowledge they need to take the preventative measures, identify cases of malaria early, and understand when to seek professional healthcare and treatment.
At ChildFund, our focus is on implementing programs which prioritise the health, wellbeing and resilience of children, to ensure more children survive and thrive.
You can help prevent the spread of malaria
Increasing the availability of mosquito nets in affected communities is absolutely essential to reducing rates of malaria infection. Ensure a child can sleep safely throughout the night by donating a mosquito net today.
World Immunisation Week aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. This year’s theme is #VaccinesWork, so we sat down with ChildFund Health Advisor Tracy Yuen, to talk about her work to ensure children around the globe have access to what is widely recognised as one of the world’s most successful and cost-effective health interventions.
1. The hopes of the world are now resting on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine. Can you tell us why vaccines are so important in saving lives?
Vaccines are one of the greatest inventions of medicine and public health. They have saved millions of lives of children around the world, in rich countries and poor, while also preventing illness, and lifelong, disease-associated disability.
Unlike medicines that are used to treat disease, vaccines
strengthen our immune systems and prevent individuals from falling ill in the
first place. This saves money in medical systems and treatment programs and reduces
the financial burden on parents who would otherwise need to seek proper healthcare
if their child were to contract a disease.
In the communities where ChildFund works, this is really
important. Parents are often unable to afford the costs of education or nutritious
food, let alone use their savings and take time from work to care for a sick
child.
For children, being safe from the myriad of childhood diseases present in the world means their lives are protected, they aren’t missing school due to illness, and they can focus their energies on breaking the cycle of disadvantage and building a better future.
2. ChildFund works with many remote and rural communities in the Asia-Pacific region. What challenges do children and families face in accessing vaccination programs? How do you overcome these obstacles?
In many of the countries where ChildFund works, parents will walk for a whole day to get to a health facility to vaccinate their child. They know how precious this gift of immunity is.
Unfortunately, they can face many barriers in order to
protect their children from preventable disease.
In Papua New Guinea (PNG), the health system is so under resourced that mothers will often walk all the way to the nearest health post, only to find a facility struggling with a shortage of both staff and treatment options.
Drug shortages are common in remote and rural areas. As many vaccines come in vials with 10 doses, a healthcare worker in a small, under-resourced facility can be forced to make some difficult decisions. For example, if there are fewer than 10 children in attendance, the health worker may ask parents to return at another time to maximise the doses available and ensure none go to waste.
In theory, there should be sufficient stock in all clinics
but, in reality, these workers live with constant drug shortages and must make a
call on how to best use their very limited resources for their population in
need.
Unfortunately, these shortages can erode trust in the health
system and prevent mothers from returning if they feel their time will be
wasted. If parents need to pay for transport to and from the clinic, the
chances of a repeat visit are even less likely.
In villages located remotely in the mountains, parents often
rely on government-led outreach vaccination campaigns. But these too can be
unreliable – due to funding shortfalls, a broken vehicle at the health centre,
or when vaccine stocks haven’t been replenished.
ChildFund plays an important role in helping parents in
rural communities to access healthcare. Our teams work in partnership with
district health departments to fill the gaps. This could involve providing
portable vaccine coolers and cold chain equipment, or transporting health
workers in our cars.
We have also established strong and effective health volunteer networks, which means we can advise communities that an outreach day is coming. With poor mobile coverage in many communities, volunteers usually walk from one household to another. In Laos and Vietnam, this is not always an easy feat as in some villages, houses are situated hills apart; you may not hear from your neighbour for days.
But this communication is incredibly effective and means as many parents as possible know to bring their children to a central village for the day.
3. Are there any traditional or cultural beliefs that make families reluctant to get their children immunised? How do you reassure communities?
I don’t think I’ve come across any traditional beliefs which discourage parents from vaccinating their children, although there are plenty surrounding childbirth. Instead, there are localised rumours that can pop up in response to certain events.
I recall one case where mothers became worried after some children
came down with diarrhoea following a vaccination campaign. This had not occurred
in any surrounding villages where the vaccine had been administered, so it was
more likely that there was a stomach bug going around at the same time.
However, word of mouth can be very powerful, and this became a common concern for that community. The only way we can combat such rumours is by acknowledging the concern and talking to parents and community leaders on why it doesn’t make sense, and instead promoting the benefits of vaccines.
I also recently read about a tragic story during the Samoa measles outbreak. Some parents were reluctant to vaccinate their children because of an earlier event where two babies had died. This wasn’t a reaction against the vaccine; instead the nurses had acted in negligence and mixed the doses with an anaesthetic instead of the correct solution.
But it created a widespread fear that lowered vaccination rates in the country dramatically and led to the outbreak of more than 5,700 cases and over 80 deaths. For a country with a population of around 200,000, these numbers were significant.
4. In recent years, we have seen the re-emergence of polio in PNG, and a measles outbreak in Samoa. What were the causes of these outbreaks?
The reappearance of polio in PNG was a real wake-up call. Vaccination rates and other health indicators had been falling for some time and it really was a ticking bomb waiting to happen.
The lack of investment in PNG’s health system has left large
areas of people under-vaccinated, and unfortunately this resulted in what is
known as “vaccine derived poliovirus”.
Essentially, there are two forms of the polio vaccine: a
‘live’, orally administered version that is cheap and easy to deliver, and an
inactivated “dead” vaccine, delivered through an injection.
The ‘live’ vaccine used in PNG uses a weakened version of the poliovirus that can’t make you sick but provides enough exposure for you to develop immunity. This vaccine gets delivered as a couple of drops in the mouth, makes its way through the body and is then passed out in your stool. Use of this vaccine in the past had led to PNG being declared polio free in 2000.
Unfortunately – and only rarely and in situations where a population is severely under-immunised – the virus can be picked up, spread, and over several generations of passing through unvaccinated individuals, has the potential to mutate back into a virulent form that can paralyse. This is what happened in PNG.
In Australia, we use the inactivated vaccine. It is more expensive and requires a health worker to give you an injection, but doesn’t have this issue.
But because low income countries have poor health systems and can’t afford to mass vaccinate their populations with the inactivated polio vaccine, they are still using the oral one. It is generally very safe and has helped eliminate polio from countless countries, but it still contains a very rare risk that resulted in the emergence of polio in PNG.
5. We are seeing reduced vaccination rates in developed countries, including Australia. How can we encourage more families to vaccinate their children?
The rates of vaccination in Australia are actually really good, at around 95%. It is only in small, specific communities that we are seeing low rates of immunisation. Unfortunately, those pockets create areas of vulnerability and are where you will see sporadic outbreaks of diseases such as whooping cough, which can be life-threatening particularly among newborns.
It can be very hard to change the minds of people who don’t agree with vaccines, so the best thing we can do is to promote overall science literacy and critical thinking among all Australians, both at school and as adults.
We need to encourage people to ask questions and think about
what goes into their bodies, but we also need science and health educators to
explain how vaccines work, how incredibly effective they are at preventing dangerous
diseases, and what little risk they pose in comparison to some of the everyday
products and medicines that people routinely take.
Thanks to our high rates of vaccination in Australia, our
kids are doubly protected, once through the individual immunity of receiving a
shot, as well as protection offered by ‘herd immunity’. This means that because
the majority of people around you are immune, you are less likely to encounter a
disease. Herd immunity also ensures that individuals who cannot be immunised
for medical reasons are kept safe from infection by those who have.
In many of the communities where ChildFund works, there is no herd immunity. Sadly, parents continue to lose their children to preventable disease, and outbreaks can grow rapidly.
But we know that improvements in child health outcomes are
possible in all regions of the world. Australia is a great example of how the
combination of widespread vaccination campaigns, accessible health information
for parents, and a strong health system can relegate many feared childhood
diseases – such as polio – to history.
Donate now, and help protect vulnerable communities from COVID-19
ChildFund has adapted our development programs to face the threat of COVID-19 in communities across Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea and Cambodia, but we need your help.
Donate to our COVID-19 crisis appeal today and help stop the spread among vulnerable communities.
About Tracy Yuen
Tracy is the Health Advisor at ChildFund Australia. Having
worked previously in biomedical research, Tracy was involved in the design of
vaccines for infectious diseases. She transitioned to public health in 2012,
and in her role at ChildFund now provides technical and strategic support to
programs covering maternal and child health, nutrition, and water and
sanitation across the Asia-Pacific region.