By Susannah McCandless | Project Administrator
This past month, the project returned to 30 communities in the Upper Parucito River watershed, a year after our initial visit. We were impressed by local clinics', health personnel and communities’ work. They confirmed experiencing a very low rate of malaria since implemeting project protocols, with just 5 cases in the past year. The census we updated, again in partnership with OIYAPAM (the Organización Indígena Yabarana del Alto Parucito de Amazonas), showed that those communities total 1,900 people, from multiple ethnicities: Yabarana, Piaroa, Eñepa, Jotï, Jiwi and criollo (see data table).
That success allowed this project visit to focus on other urgent health needs, like delivering snakebite antivenoms. To enable refrigeration of those antivenoms, higher-resolution mocroscopy, and other needs, the project delivered and installed a solar-powered electric system for the only outpatient clinic in the Parucito Basin, at Majagua. It’s a Yabarana-run clinic that serves and benefits people from the whole highly multiethnic town, as well as Piaroa, Eñepa, Jotï, Jiwi and creole people living upstream.
The solar installation included 4 panels, 4 batteries, an inverter, controller, and regulation panel. The elements were both heavy and bulky: the batteries alone each weighed over 40 pounds, and couldn’t travel by commercial aircraft. Along with multiple boxes of requested medications and medical supplies, project materials and supplies overflowed the pickup that took them from Caracas, filled the bush plane from Puerto Ayacucho, and loaded down the only truck in the town of Maniapiare.
Then, the items required a second, larger canoe for transport upriver, while project personnel went on to the smaller Joti community of Cajuare for 4 days, in smaller canoe. The batteries made the last leg of their journey to the clinic in a wheelbarrow, watched over by Berma, the same young malarial technician who accompanied us on our last trip. She accompanied us on much of our journey this time, as well.
We were lucky to find a skilled Yabarana electrician based in Majagua, who was very familiar with solar electric system installation. He hardly needed to glance at the complex diagrams drawn up by the engineer from whom the project had purchased the panels. He and his team were very pleased with the quality of the components we brought. The electrician is pictured next to the small refrigerator the project delivered, stocked with the antivenom effective against the bites of multiple snake species. Powered by the solar panels, the fridge lets the clinic safely store the antivenom and other temperature-sensitive medications.
The community health nurse, pictured below conducting a blood pressure-check on a community leader, is delighted with the way access to electricity, refrigeration, and antivenoms will increase the scope and complexity of conditions the remote rural health clinic can effectively diagnose and address.
The importance of having antivenom nearby was driven home when a member of the project team had a close nighttime encounter with a highly venomous fer de lance (Bothrops asper) in their sleeping quarters. They fortunately emerged unscathed, thanks to the quick response of their Joti neighbors in Cajuare.
We are grateful to be in relationship with the members of these highly dedicated and capable communities, and appreciate how effectively they have identified and communicated key needs with us, and used the resulting inputs and training to implement and strengthen effective public health strategies for their communities. We are also grateful to be in relationship with you, and all you do to make this work possible!
By Eglee Zent, Susannah McCandless, Stanford Zent | Project Leaders
By Eglee Zent with Susannah McCandless | Project Leader
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