A Review of Malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa

                                    Cause of Widespread Infection:

As stated earlier, Africa accounts for 90% of death by malaria on a global scale.  Though the continent is fighting rigorously to destroy this fatal act, it seems impossible despite the different avenues of support for eradication of the disease.  This of course can be attributed to three key factors: ignorance, poverty, and the lack of commitment.

Ignorance:  People are not fully educated or, in some cases, are completely uneducated towards the disease and its devastating outcome.  As rural and suburban areas are usually attacked on a higher scale, people from these sections are highly susceptible to being victimized.  This is usually the case due to poor health practices that are conducted within the communities, which have become a part of their lifestyle as these acts were engulfed and dissimilated through cultural diffusion.

            By the way of example, with regards to poor health practices: 1.—Domestic refuse are not disposed properly.  Due to this, pools of stagnant water can be seen which serves as a base for the complete metamorphosis of mosquitoes—the vector of malaria parasite(s).2.—Dump sites are not formed at isolated areas.  Since they are exposed, they serve as a breeding ground for mosquitoes.  This is worse, especially during the rainy season when these garbage areas are then waterlogged.  Adjacently, we can consider the misuse of public latrines.  People leave urine on the floor consistently which can serve as a form of attraction to mosquitoes and a breeding ground.  All in all, this serves as another mechanism for the mosquito to feed on us humans, thus a way to spread the disease.3.—We can also consider areas that are swampy, bushy, or even tropical forest areas.  These terrains serve as host environments for the vector since they can reside comfortably in marshy and waterlogged areas.  When these situations do exist in an environment, there is bound to be a widespread of the disease due to the increment in the population of the vector.

Poverty:  Due to the poor economical status of African countries, people are not able to purchase preventive equipments (mosquito spray, screens, Insecticide Treated Nets [ITN’s], insecticides [DDT-limits transmission], etc.) (5). In addition to this, governments are not able to provide these necessities for their citizens due to high cost of nation wide supplies.  This causes a rise in the level of infection.  For instance, people farm a lot in Africa and they have to cultivate the bushes and forests into farmland.  These farmers are exposed to being bitten by mosquitoes and hence malaria.  Also, they live nearby the host zones of the vector, which has a high influx of the mosquito, thus giving themselves a higher exposure rate than many other African inhabitants.  These factors seem to be habitual since preventive methods are not applied due to financial constraints.  Furthermore, due to poverty, people are not able to purchase new drugs but instead rely on drugs that are malaria resistant (chloroquine), which is ineffective and very cheap (10 cents per pill on the average) (5).

Lack of Commitment:  Messages on controlling the widespread of the disease have been disseminated through workshops, media, and even the school systems by local and foreign health care organizations, which are not implemented properly.  The reasons are the following:  1.—Those who were trained to amplify the message are not given it out in its full content due either to the fact that they were not adequately trained or they are not taking the time in teaching the general public on how to prevent or eradicate the widespread of the disease in a proper manner.2.—As the public is being educated, they are not practicing what is being preached to t