In Kenya, a Community Fights Against Malaria

April 25, 2011

A child suffering from malaria sleeps under a mosquito net while a mother feeds her child, also suffering from malaria, in Siaya hospital in western Kenya, October 30, 2009 (file photo)

As World Malaria Day is observed worldwide April 25, VOA takes a look at Malindi, a city on Kenya’s coast that is fighting malaria through community action.

As the world works to eliminate malaria deaths by 2015, sub-Saharan Africa is still struggling to confront the continent’s number-one killer of children under the age of five years old.

In Malindi, the fight against malaria is a community affair. The city of about 150,000 is on Kenya’s coast, in one of the country’s two hotspots for the disease. For residents of Malindi, malaria not only is a threat to their lives and their children, it is a threat to their livelihoods.

The coastal city is a popular destination for Italian beachgoers, and its economy is based almost entirely on tourism. The threat of losing those tourists is a constant reality for the resorts and restaurants in the region.

Fighting malaria in Kenya is a challenge, with the potent, but controversial, chemical DDT banned by the government. So when members of the Malindi community sought to tackle the problem, they realized they would need to involve the city’s residents.