All Thursday night, Anne lay with her daughter on a narrow bed at Jamii Hospital as other patients and their mothers lay nearby. From inside the white mesh mosquito net, Anne listened to the slow whirring of the overhead fans and held her daughter. She slept with one eye open, ready to call a nurse in case of trouble. Because the antimalarials made her ears ring loudly, Elena couldn't hear. She didn't eat, she didn't talk, and she hardly moved.
On Friday, the epic battle of drug versus parasite continued in Elena's body. On Friday night, Anne again slept in the hospital bed, holding her daughter close. On Saturday morning, Anne left her daughter briefly, then returned with family friends. Another little girl, a friend of Elena's, called out to Elena. Elena answered! Soon she was sitting up and smiling. She remained in the hospital for another day before she was released.
Elena is now an energetic girl of 14, but for years the experience haunted her. Months later, she spoke of a dream she'd had while her body was in the grip of malaria. Three clouds were coming for her—one for mom, one for dad, and one for herself. "I saw a white cloud coming down, and I wanted to go in it," she said. And again and again in the months and years that followed, Elena would ask her mom, "Do you remember the day when you walked into the hospital and carried me because I was dead?"
* * *
Elena Githeko's close call shocked more than just her parents. It stunned Andrew Githeko, Mwangi Githeko's brother and Elena's uncle. Andrew also happens to be a friend and colleague and a worldrenowned malaria expert who directs the Climate and Human Health Research Unit at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in Kisumu. When I first met Andrew in the late 1990s, he was a rising star in the field of medical entomology, the study of insects that carry disease. Andrew Githeko's is the tale of a scientific underdog who, through patience and persistence, triumphed against formidable opposition. And it's a tale of discovery that has helped settle a contentious question: Can global warming contribute to the spread of disease?
Now a compact man of 52 with an oval face, closecropped hair, and a steady gaze, Githeko grew up as the eldest of five brothers in a prominent and relatively welloff teagrowing family in Ihwagi, a rural village near Karatina, approximately fifty miles north of Nairobi. He listens patiently when asked a question, then speaks without hesitation or hurry, with the air of someone who's used to being heard.
In 1991, before returning to England for his final year of training worldfamous Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in England, he witnessed his first intense malaria epidemic in the hills of western Kenya. It was pandemonium. "Patients come in. Some need a blood transfusion," Githeko recalls. Others develop cerebral malaria. "They're mad, and you need to strap them to the bed…Others, there's nowhere to put them; you put them outside, and it's raining." Githeko shakes his head. "You've got people under the bed; others are yelling…You can't go home. You can't get tired. The morgue is full." As KEMRI's resident mosquito biologist, Andrew went from village to village, hunting for malariacarrying mosquitoes. "They were everywhere, breeding in large numbers," he recalls. The malarial parasites responsible for the epidemic had evolved resistance to chloroquine, the most common antimalarial drug. "We couldn't control this thing," he says. "It was very scary."
Runaway epidemics like the 1991 western Kenya outbreak occur only at the edge of malaria's range, typically at higher elevations. At lower elevations in the tropics, steamy weather maintains mosquitoes and malaria yearround, and people have developed an uneasy balance of power with malaria parasites. Most residents are exposed as children, and some succumb to the disease. But the majority of malaria patients survive, and those who do develop partial immunity. That reduces the intensity of later malaria infections to that of the flu.
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Add CommentThe stock photo is an Aedes mosquito, I think. (abdomen points down.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAccording 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...
Mosquitoes do not depend on climate change rather on weather.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnough 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.
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).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBack 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
It would be good to do a web search....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStudents aim to combat malaria with smartphone software
Several sites are aware of this ap.
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.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.merchantsofdoubt.org