Malaria Treatment & Prevention
Moshi, Tanzania
Started by Mitsuru Toda on 20 Jan 2010
I'm writing from Moshi, Tanzania. I'm here as part of my winter session course learning how clinical research is conducted in resource-limited settings. We've visited a couple of local health facilities and was impressed that bed nets were available in pediatric and adult wards, and Coartem/other combination medicines with artemisinin are being dispensed.
I was equally impressed that my host family provided me with a mosquito net during my stay here. However, last week, one of the people living in the house I am staying said he had malaria. He came down with a fever and did not have the strengths to eat meals. With my limited Kiswahili skills, I understood that he does not sleep under the bed net and that he has not gone to see the doctor yet. Unexpectedly, I saw the challenges that local people here face, right in the home I was staying for the past few weeks.
Now he is healthy and had agreed to go see a doctor. I'm leaving Moshi tomorrow and hope to give a mosquito net for him as a gift.
Bolanle Bukoye
Thanks for sharing Mitsuru! It is good to know that many of the methods that are known to be effective are actually been implemented on the ground.
It is however possible that the individual you met does not have clinical malaria and the fever he complained of may simply be a manifestation of another disease. I am currently working on a project to determine the scale of overdiagnosed cases of malaria in Tanzania using data from a cross sectional survey. My hope is that results from such studies will help to inform policies guiding diagnosis and treatment of malaria in Tanzania. I believe that this area deserves more attention given the burden of morbidity and mortality caused by malaria in Tanzania and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
1:56 PM, 26 Jan 2010 | Permalink
Mitsuru Toda
Hi Bola,
Thank you for your comment. Your research sounds very interesting and I look forward to hearing more about your findings! The person I met is well now. The doctor told him malaria, but I did not ask further whether any blood samples were taken for diagnosis.
I am aware that a couple of professors at Oxford and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are separately looking at the issues you raised, in terms of looking at the presence (geo-mapping) of malaria parasite, and not just symptomatic cases. I believe their research is conducted in Kenya. It is definitely an important area of research to guide important policies in the region. Best of luck with your research in the coming months.
3:33 PM, 27 Jan 2010 | Permalink