UMNS: Church attacks malaria on several fronts
A UMNS Report
By Phileas Jusu
John Blackie, 15, lies ill with malaria at United Methodist Mercy Hospital in Kulando, Sierra Leone, in July. UMNS web-only photos by Phileas Jusu.
The malaria infection rate once more is slowing in southern Sierra Leone as the rainy season nears an end, report health workers in the Bo District.
That is an expected pattern, says the director of the Malaria Initiative for the United Methodist Committee on Relief. Shannon M. Trilli notes that malaria cases go up in rainy seasons and down in dry seasons.
However, she explained that the denomination’s Imagine No Malaria campaign aims to minimize transmissions of the disease, especially during rainy seasons, and to help people know when they contract malaria so they will choose to get medical help.
The United Methodist Church contributed more than 600,000 bed nets — 320,000 in the Bo District — in a project with the Sierra Leone government and other international organizations to provide more than 3 million insecticide-treated bed nets. The campaign also administers polio vaccinations, Vitamin A tablets and deworming medicine to children younger than 5.
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