End Malaria in Children of Rural communities, Kano

Dear Supporters, Family and Friends of Serendipity Healthcare Foundation,

We have been working on malaria interventions in five communities of Madobi local governing council in Kano, Nigeria since 2014. In the over two years of community-based education initiatives on home management of malaria, and with extensive community feedback, we’ve had plenty of opportunities to fail and learn from our mistakes and also success stories.

Our community health outreach staff works year-round with over 50 women and 20 children from five communities in Madobi providing trainings on home management of Malaria, prevention strategies and control measures, with the goal of providing a comprehensive and holistic approach on reducing the scourge of the malaria vector. By training these women and children to recognize the early onset of malaria symptoms as well as seek for medical aid, we seek to not only increase access to the use of Insecticide Treated Nets, but also to ensure there is a behavior change to their lifestyle.

The women and children of Madobi prior to our interventions had a phobia for sleeping under Insecticide Treated Nets as 30% of the 50 women we interviewed claimed that the nets had a distinct smell of chemical and thus had a choking effect whilst 45% of the women claimed to break out in a rash when their skin touched the nets and the remaining 25% use the nets with no problems; Serendipity sought to address these phobia through trainings on the proper use of the nets and now two years down the line we conducted a survey of 70 women from the five communities we are working in the past two months and 75% of the women sleep under the ITNs with no issues while the remaining 25% are still using the old method of sleeping with pesticides; with this in mind our community outreach staff with the community leaders put their heads together to design an action plan for the containment of malaria in the community of those 25% women and active door to door vigilance for susceptibility of malaria for the next three months.

Today we are happy to share with you that we are achieving more than 50% in the reduction of malaria cases in Madobi and the usage of ITNS by over 70%. We distributed 90 ITNs and gave out first line antimalarial drugs to preganant women in their first trimester; Thus we say thank you to everyone that have reposed trust in our organization to be the liaison between the women and children of Madobi and you in providing help to the needy.

Thank you,

Fatima Lawani

Links:

• Malaria Intervention in Rural Communities