Kalma Camp is right now struggling with malaria. The wet season ended not long ago and mosquito populations are high.
Visiting our health center in Sector 6 of the camp, we learned that they were seeing hundreds of new cases of malaria every day. In the center’s laboratory where they test blood samples for the disease, they were running through microscope slide cover glasses faster than they could keep them in stock.
Laying on cots in the temporary stay ward, patients were suffering malaria attacks – shaking chills, high fever, headache, nausea.
A temporary shortage of malaria treatment drugs means that many of these people are not receiving the drugs they need to fight the disease. And if the malaria parasite is able to spread throughout the body unchecked, malaria can be fatal.
“We can save lives if we buy malaria medicines,” Arafa, our HR Manager, encouraged us.
Our team headed to Nyala, the closest city, to find malaria drugs available in stores and in the market. The price may have been higher than what we would normally pay, but we wanted to make sure that people who were suffering got the medicine they needed to recover. With our daily Changemakers 365 budget, we were able to purchase enough medicine for 300 patients to fight off the disease.
