Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It (University of California Press, April 4, 2011).

Elena Githeko was normally energetic and chatty. But on a Tuesday morning in 2003, Elena's mother, Anne Mwangi, found her daughter quiet and listless, her forehead warm with fever. Anne thought it was just the flu, so she did what any concerned mother would do: she stayed home from work to care for her daughter.

At age seven, Elena had her mom's mischievous almond eyes, her dad's chubby cheeks, neatly braided cornrows, and a broad smile. Until that Tuesday, she'd been perfectly healthy.

The phone rang late that afternoon at Mathaithi Secondary School, a girls' high school where Anne teaches history and Christian religious education. As the maid spoke, Anne's fine­boned face knotted with worry.

Elena could not keep her food down. She had a horrible headache, and she was burning with fever. Anne called her husband. Within minutes, Mwangi Githeko arrived to pick up Anne in the family vehicle, a blue 1970s­era Toyota pickup. At 5 p.m., they sped home over winding, hilly roads. By the time they arrived at their house, Elena was crying. Her feet were cold, she was dehydrated, and her forehead was on fire.

They raced to another a nearby clinic for a second opinion from another doctor. Take Elena straight to the hospital, he the doctor told them. It was 6 p.m. At Jamii Hospital in Karatina, a doctor quickly took Elena's blood pressure and temperature, listened to her symptoms, and did some tests. Malaria, he said. She needed to be admitted—immediately. That horrible headache might be a sign of cerebral malaria, a condition in which the malaria parasites burrow into the cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the brain, and sometimes into the brain itself. Anne Mwangi had lived in Kenya her entire life, long enough to know what cerebral malaria could mean. "I thought my daughter was condemned to death," she says.

* * *

Each year, malaria sickens one of every 20 people on the planet—some 300 million people, a total roughly comparable to the population of the United States. In many ways, Elena Githeko's case was typical: intense fever, sweats, shaking chills, and extreme weakness. Many of those who recover suffer long­lasting anemia, periodic fevers, and chronic disability. The World Health Organization estimates that malaria kills more than a million people a year, most of them children. In Africa, where 75 percent of all cases occur, a child like Elena Githeko dies of malaria every 30 seconds.

In much of sub­Saharan Africa, Elena's diagnosis would have been sadly routine. Here, in the foothills of Mount Kenya, it was remarkable. Mount Kenya is a massive, long­extinct volcano, more than 50 kilometers (31 miles) wide at its base, with snow­capped peaks that graze the sky at an altitude of more than five kilometers. Despite being just 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the equator, Karatina sits in Mount Kenya's foothills at an altitude of 1,600 meters (almost a mile), high enough to have a distinctly cooler climate than the low­lying tropical areas of the country. When the first British colonists settled in Kenya in the late 1800s, the central Kenya highlands, like highlands in Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia, were considered a place to escape the mal aria—the bad air—that was thought to cause the disease. When Anne Mwangi and Mwangi Githeko were growing up in Karatina in the 1960s, malaria was unheard of. A 1970 national atlas had deemed the region "malaria­free." "We never had this problem," Mwangi Githeko says.

Elena, however, definitely had a problem with malaria, and possibly cerebral malaria. As her mother watched, the doctor approached Elena with a syringe full of antimalarial drugs. "Doctor, do not touch me! Don't inject me!" she cried. But the doctor did what he had to do, putting an intravenous line into Elena's hand. A powerful antimalarial drug coursed directly into her blood, where it could do battle with the parasites then wreaking havoc in her frail body.

5 Comments

1. 1. BoRon 02:03 PM 4/1/11

   The stock photo is an Aedes mosquito, I think. (abdomen points down.)
   
   According to National Geographic, "The female Anopheles mosquito is the only insect capable of carrying the human malaria parasite." (abdomen points up.)
   
   I shouldn't get so bugged by stock photos...

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2. 2. wildstorm 10:40 PM 4/3/11

   Mosquitoes do not depend on climate change rather on weather.
   
   Enough rainfall produces a swarm condition where larvae breed. Of course, a warm humid climate is exceptionally conducive than to a cold condition yet they could sustain below 26 degrees Farh. Siberia and Alaska have mosquitoes.
   
   The differences here is Africa is a populated continent and with the banning of cheap DDT people living in mudhouse and living in the open died.
   
   Millions and billions of dollars are provided to buy anti-malarial medicine and medical assistance but because of political and other form of corruptions many will not get the treatment needed, and die.

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3. 3. rgcorrgk 03:43 AM 4/4/11

   Wildstorm, you have that about right! The banning of DDT continues to kill people in Africa. They die every day in large numbers (thanks, in part, to the largely false, Chicken Little story by Rachel Carson – SILENT SPRING etc)! Now we have the newest Chicken Little story, Global Warming, renamed Climate Change, for more propaganda value, rousing public hysteria for political & financial gain. And, we are going to “control” CO2, (how about water vapor)! It is all very PC & unbelievable stupid! Sure, you can put the WEST into an economic tail spin, leaving the field open for the serious polluters like China (building a new coal fired plant every 6 months’ or so, & well on its way toward world domination). Yes, we can always beg China for rare earth metals - China has a strangle hold on the world’s supply; so, we can have China build the largely pathetic green energy devices, which no rational person looking at the facts can believe are ready for prime time (advanced solar panels etc need China’s rare earths – they have us by the proverbials in more ways then one).
   Back to public hysteria over “Global Warming” (alias, Climate Change), given warming takes place, on other planets as with ours, likely due to solar cycles – not CO2, it won’t happen overnight (there well be hundreds of years to adjust), and, most importantly, our relatives, likely very distant future relatives – speaking Spanish no doubt, well all rejoice! You see, across the board, “Global Warming” is a blessing for nearly all forms of life! On the other hand, Global Cooling is a curse across the board for nearly all life that matters to us – including human! Yes, we do have reason to fear a killer like Global Cooling – past articles by Scientific American on Nuclear Winter type scenarios will put the fear in you. Not to forget, being hit by an asteroid, &/or a serious volcanic eruption – think of that movie a few years back called The Day After Tomorrow (the title refers to the fact that unlike the very very slow process of heating, cooling can be “the day after tomorrow”. And don’t count on NASA to come to the rescue; our Shuttles are going to be rusting in museums, if not scraped out to the Chinese (thanks to our declining footprint on this plant – by foolish design). Hysteria & delusions are part of the human experience, if not nature, in 1841 a book came out that describes examples from times past, it’s called, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. For something very current & on topic (if you can find it) see a DVD made by an English group, as I recall: “The Tragic Cost Of Global Warming Hysteria – not evil just wrong”, (a little balance for the flock of Chicken Littles).
   R. Carlson
   

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4. 4. electric38 04:26 PM 4/11/11

   It would be good to do a web search....
   
   Students aim to combat malaria with smartphone software
   
   Several sites are aware of this ap.
   
   
   
   
   

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5. 5. thevillagegeek in reply to rgcorrgk 10:28 AM 4/14/11

   I see we have a Merchant of Doubt in our midst. The attack on Silent Spring by the heavily-funded anti-environmental movement is documented in the book Merchants of Doubt.
   http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org

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