Adults
Malaria is a preventable disease, and yet a child dies from it every 45 seconds in Africa
Give 50p if you know at least one way of preventing malaria.
Well, I think I do know some of the answers, but to be certain I wasn't peddling misinformation, I did a quick Google, and found this helpful A-E...
- Awareness of risk.
- Bite avoidance.
- Chemoprophylaxis (taking preventive medicines if you are travelling to or living in a malaria region).
- Diagnosis made promptly with early treatment of an infected case.
- E can be considered for remote adventure trips. The E stands for 'Emergency treatment with safe drugs', such as Artemesin combined with Lumefantrine.
That's all fine and good for western travellers, but for indigenous people, especially those experiencing poverty, the key is bite avoidance - which means mosquito nets, in good condition, used all the time. The pledge of 50p is about 10% of the cost of a mossie net... so I hope lots of people are pledging.
Typing and researching this post has probably taken about ten minutes... so on average 10-11 children will have died from malaria whilst I've been preparing it. I guess it takes about a minute to read - another one whilst you read it. With an average of ~200 hits a day on this blog, that's equivalent to a small UK primary school wiped out... salutary.
My pledge
Today - 50p
Total - - £30.55, seven prayers, some thoughts and one e-petition signed