Throughout the long history of infectious diseases, the new crown virus is still a very young existence. In contrast, malaria, as an even older infectious disease, has lasted for tens of thousands of years from the time of ancient Rome to the present.
Malaria is an infectious disease that is mainly transmitted by mosquitoes and is highly contagious, and the initial symptoms are often considered colds. When its development is severe, the pathogenic malaria parasite can enter the central nervous system and develop into "cerebral malaria".
As a disease that was eradicated in China in 2016, most of us don't know much about malaria. In fact, it is still raging in some tropical and subtropical lands, and it is deadly.
Born in London, England, Carol is also unfamiliar with this tropical disease. Carol is a filmmaker who has always longed for the wild and magnificent landscapes of Africa. After completing her film school courses, she began to travel to various indigenous tribes to prepare for the film of her own film.
In the Philippines, Carol felt the power of malaria for the first time. She was only twenty years old at the time, and she didn't know what was happening to her, just a normal cold and flu, and she didn't care too much.
Carol in Philippines | Image source: Gicho
"I almost lost consciousness and even felt like I was still in London. Then I started screaming hysterically, talking gibberish, and saw a lot of weird images on the walls" — which was already a symptom of "brain malaria."
In the end, she was fortunate to be saved.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="20" >01 when illness becomes part of the routine</h1>
A few years later, Carol came to Ghana, Africa, to make a documentary. This time, she did her homework before the trip and found that malaria transmission in Ghana, one of the 15 countries with the heaviest malaria burden in the world, is very common and severe. Considering that there was no vaccine against malaria at that time, and the disease was mainly transmitted by mosquitoes, mosquito control became almost the only thing that could be done.
Map of Malaria in Ghana | Image source: fitfortravel
Ghana's numerous rivers and waters are breeding grounds for mosquitoes, and "tornadoes" of mosquitoes are sometimes seen along the river. As a result, most of the time in Ghana, Carol wraps herself in clothes and often sprays mosquito repellent water on her body. The night is the time for the mosquitoes to move on a large scale, and Carol needs to go home before the sun goes down and sleep under a mosquito net at night.
But there are still many foreigners who have fallen ill or even lost their lives as a result. Like twenty-year-old Carol, they mistakenly thought they were just suffering from the common flu and missed the best time for treatment. Malaria parasites spread very quickly, and if they are not treated in the first place, they can easily endanger their lives. Several of Carol's friends died of malaria after returning from a trip to Ghana.
The locals don't care, and they still hang out by the river every day in shorts and shorts. Illness is part of their daily lives.
Carol once photographed a girl transporting heavy loads (locally known as "kayayo") on top of her head. They came to the capital, Accra, from remote northern countryside, in an attempt to make a living in this way. Because of their poverty, they have no stable shelter and often sleep on the side of the road, or many spend the night in "tents (made of cement blocks, without doors)". In this environment, malaria is commonplace for them. Many have even developed antibodies to fight malaria and will not show any symptoms even if infected with the malaria parasite.
Carol's book on the Kayayo girls | Image source: Amazon
To make matters worse, in Africa, where medical facilities are relatively backward, basic hospital testing is difficult to detect the presence of pathogenic plasmodiums. Once, Carroll suspected that malaria had found her again, so she went to the doctor to test her blood, and the result was negative. But a few hours after she got home, she suddenly got another call from the hospital telling her that after another test, they had found more malaria parasites in her blood samples.
Blood smear containing Plasmodium falciparum | Image source: wikipedia
Therefore, a simple "negative" test result is not enough to provide a health pass once and for all.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="20" >02 "The most effective medicine is still made in China"</h1>
The human fight against malaria has been going on for centuries. As the resistance of the virus continues to increase, the drugs used to treat malaria have also changed from quinine to artemisinin and are still in the process of iterating.
Carol began to carry medicine in her pocket forever, taking one whenever she felt like she might get malaria. "If I had to be tested rigorously, I'd probably have malaria dozens of times."
"The most effective thing now is artemisinin, which they say comes from China." Speaking of which, Carol found a box of Coartem based on artemisinin from the medicine box at home, which is also the world's first choice for antimalarial drugs.
Carroll's most frequent antimalarial drug | Image source: Gicho
However, for many Ghanaians, around £5 a box of coartem is a luxury.
Ghana has also been taking other measures to combat malaria, such as the provision of insecticide-treated mosquito nets. In 2019, an estimated 46% of people at high risk of malaria in Africa were already protected by this mosquito net; in 2000, this figure was only 2%. In addition, the treatment of malaria is covered by the benefit scheme of ghana's National Health Insurance (NHIS).
Staff show the public insecticide-treated mosquito nets | Image source: CGTN
In 2019, Ghana launched the first approved pilot program for malaria vaccine Mosquirix. Since the pilot, the programme has vaccinated 1.7 million doses of malaria vaccine in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, enabling more than 650,000 children to benefit from additional malaria protection.
And for vulnerable groups such as Kayayo girls who live in the wind, civil society organizations are also taking action. The Kayayo Youth Association (KAYA), founded in 2002, is trying to provide vocational skills training for Kayayo girls and find more alternative sources of income to improve their poor health, at least so that they can afford an effective mosquito net.
Today is 26 April, National Malaria Day. Although we living in China have long since ceased to suffer from malaria, its serious consequences on a global scale should not be ignored. We still need to be vigilant. Bill Gates, who has always cared about malaria, once said that mosquitoes do not maintain social distancing.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, these tiny creatures, invisible to the naked eye, need to be treated with greater caution. That's why we need to know more about diseases, to dispel myths and get along with them better.
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Text | Gicho
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