Kenya-Malaria question

[devidasi]

Hi,

I am hoping someone can help me with a question about malaria. My family and I may be moving to an area near Kisumu, Kenya in about six months. My children will be 1 yr. and 3 yrs. I know that this is a malaria zone. Does anyone have any experience with this? I know that there are preventative medications that you can take but they sound awful. On the other hand, I'm sure the disease is pretty awful too. I really prefer to take alternative/natural medicines in general and don't have a lot of faith in the mainstream medical establishment. Any information anyone has on this topic would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[MamaDavid]

Hi
We live in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Malaria was one of my main concerns moving here - my kids were 2 months and 3 years old respectively when we moved here.

Malaria is potentialy dangerous and can be fatal if left untreated that said, after nearly 2 years of living in a malaria area I have realised that it is more a disease of economics. It effects the poor far more than the affluent. If you can afford a house with mosquito mesh infront of the doors and windows, can afford mosquito netting, mosquito repellents and can afford good/average? medical care you are very unlikely to get the disease and even less likely to get very ill from it. Milllions of people in Africa die from malaria, not because it is such a killer disease, but because they are so very poor.

My children have been tested various times for malaria - basically every time they have had a high fever. The test is rather simple. They collect a blood smear by pricking the child's finger (not very pleasant!) and then check it under the microscope for malaria parasites. The test might have to be repeated if it was initially negative, but the child/person does not improve. We do not take prophylatics as I do not like the idea of us all taking drugs for such a long period of time. The doctors in malaria areas are also very good at treating the disease. The local people in Dar es Salaam amaze me. Janet, my domestic worker was very ill with malaria. She was diagnosed and then she did not get and take the anti-malarials straight away. As a result she was hospitalised and put on a quinine drip as it was turning into cerebral malaria. The very next day she is back at work - no problem she is OK now.

I am rambling a bit here. This is how we have managed the situation:
1. Keep our sleeping area mozzie free - we sleep under a net and once in a while we spray the room.
2. Keep the screen doors closed - if they are not spring hinged prepare yourself to often say "close the door!".
3. We have a gadget from Rentokil in our living area that sprays some non-harmful insected repellent/killer into the air every few minutes.
4. If we go out late afternoon/evening we put plenty of mozzie repellent on all exposed bits of our bodies - stock up on some child friendly ones before you leave and if possible test the effectiveness before you buy a whole lot.
5. Get rid of any stagnant water in the garden.

And a final bit of advice - try to relax, not every mozzie that bites you or the kids is going to give you malaria and you are going to get bitten no matter how careful you are. The best you can do is minimise the number of bites you get and when the bites happen - the malaria baddies are most active at night and the yellow fever guys come at you during the day. (You just can not win!)

We have all been malaria free for 2 years now and for me it is now a case of if it happens it happens and we'll deal with it then. It is a treatable disease.

Hope it helps...

[mamarhu]

Look into artemesia, an herb that has been used in Chinese traditional medicine for a gazillion years, but is just lately getting attention of western researchers. I don't remember if it is used prophylactically, maybe just treatment. I would question the wisdom of using a preventative long-term. ElderSon was an infant when we lived in malarial areas, and at that time, the prophylactic anti-malarials were too rough. I don't know if things have improved much. Another aspect of the poverty/malaria relationship - nutrition and general state of your immune system will affect your response to any infection/parasite/etc. If your health is good, your body will take care of itself in many ways that a malnourished person's will not be able to.

[cappuccinosmom]

Oh my goodness, *that's* what that stuff is called. Artemesia! I hope someone knows how to make it palatable, because when I tried it, I couldn't keep it down. It was so, so bitter.

Dh is Ethiopian, and we lived there a few months after our marriage. I used prophylactics (nasty things) and still got a mild case (dh calls it "liver malaria", and it's apparently different than the cerebral type). I was newly preggers at the time but we both survived. Dh never in his life used prevenatatives, but when he was younger, he came down with cerebral malaria which nearly killed him. Every once in a while he would come down with fever, but he knew the symptoms and the treatment so he'd just trot over to the pharmacist and treat himself, being a nurse. :innocent

Of course the best preventative is avoiding mosquitos, with nets and screens and sprays etc. Also you'll be a step ahead if you familiarize yourself with symptoms so if anyone in your family comes down with it, you know to get tested nd treated right away.

[MamaDavid]

Some advice from my mom that I found works with with all icky tablets one has to swallow - I don't know if Artemesia comes in tablet form - but in any case. My parents lived in Zambia for many years and they used malaria prophylactics that were very bitter. Coat the stuff with butter and swig it down with a glass of orange juice...

[Teri Lynn]

I just returned from Ghana where I was for two years. I had malaria 7 times and I took Artemos (artemesia) and it was in pill form. You can use it as prophylactics, but if you get it anyway then you need to treat it with something differently. It worked really quickly and I would take it along with malarone if I thought I was sick with a recurrant malaria vs a new one, just for the immediate relief. Something else that another woman used there was China. Her 4 yr old had malaria with a very high fever and it brought down his fever within an hour. I know that Artemos is easy to get in Ghana and I would guess that it would also be in Kenya. Being that it was in pill form, I had no trouble with taste or keeping it down. Of course, prevention is best. I only got sick my second year after I started to get lazy about the precautions. When I was careful, I was fine. I would bring some malarone along just in case. Yes, it is allopathic and expensive, but you only need a couple of tablets for a treatment and you can't always treat malaria with the same thing. Best of Luck!

[fatou]

hi
i lived in senegal for one year during my pregnancy..i was terrifies of malaria especially because we lived in the countryside in basic traditional condition..but i soon realized that people are very used to malaria and know what to do..prevention is the best..and the best thing i was told was from a woman who has lived there for 25 years in those conditions and has 6 children!! is malaria is to us as the flu is to you..we don´t walk around terrified by the flu (though lately they would like us to)..relax, eat well and worry more about public transportation and diareha