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Malaria: A battle of life and death


August 20, 2012
By Peter Biro

 

In an effort to prevent mosquito-borne diseases, the IRC carries out regular indoor and outdoor spraying.
Photo: Peter Biro/IRC
THAM HIN REFUGEE CAMP, Thailand -

Naw Pho Chit, a refugee from Myanmar, knows all too well the dangers of malaria. Her five-year-old nephew recently fell ill and almost died from the tropical disease, which is widespread in northwestern Thailand where some 140,000 refugees live in camps. So when a team of health workers from the International Rescue Committee showed up at her thatched hut in the Tham Hin camp, she listened carefully as they explained how she and her family could avoid being bitten by mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite.

“Now we always sleep under nets, even when we rest during the day,” Naw Pho Chit says. “People are not bitten as much.” While the disease has long been rife in this jungle-clad border region, the emergence of a new malaria strain resistant to drug treatment has made prevention a matter of life and death. 
 
The most common type of malaria found along the Thailand-Myanmar border, and the deadliest, is caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito. In 
2011, the falciparum parasite accounted for over 65 percent of the documented cases of malaria in the Tham Hin camp.
 
A woman puts up a bed net in a refugee camp in northern Thailand
Naw Pho Chit, a resident of Tham Hin camp,  puts up a mosquito net given to her by the IRC.
 
Photo: Peter Biro/IRC
The IRC’s health facility in Tham Hin contains a laboratory for early detection of malaria. If a patient’s blood test comes up positive, she is given a combination of drugs known as artemisinin-based combination therapy, or ACT. The recent discovery of malaria strains resistant to ACT has experts fearing that many more lives could be lost to a disease that already kills one million globally every year. 
 
Mosquitoes breed in standing water and there is always an increase in mosquito-borne diseases during the April-to-September rainy season. (Another common mosquito-borne disease, dengue fever, causes a flu-like illness that can be fatal in its most severe form.) 
 
“By distributing bed nets that protect against mosquito bites at night, spraying with insecticide throughout the camps, as well as eradicating mosquito larvae, we are making a difference,” says Dr. Parueluk Kesorn, a member of the IRC’s mosquito control program. 
 
The IRC regularly visits households to check buckets and other vessels used to store water. In Tham Hin, the strategy has been a success. The camp, home to some 8,000 Burmese refugees, has seen new cases of malaria drop to 175 in 2011 from 567 in 2008. “Avoiding outbreaks of disease and keeping the camps healthy is one of our greatest responsibilities,” says Dr. Kesorn.
 

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