• Another child will die of malaria within the next 30 seconds.

• The disease affects 500 million people worldwide; 90 percent of whom live in sub-Sahara Africa where it kills one fifth of the children under the age of five.

• The culprit is plasmodium, a parasite transmitted by the bite of the female anopheles mosquito.

• Children who survive may develop chronic anemia and neurological impairment.

• Pregnant women are particularly susceptible.

• Symptoms take many forms—fevers and chills in mild cases, and kidney failure, bleeding, or swelling of the brain in fatal cases.

• Malaria is both a cause of poverty and a result of poverty.

• The lethal impact decreases the economic potential of affected countries through illness, death, and loss of productivity.

• Malaria consumes 40 percent of public health expenditures and accounts for up to 50 percent of all outpatient visits and 30 - 50 percent of inpatient admissions in some places.

• MALARIA IS PREVENTABLE AND CURABLE.

	See Also... Topic: Children |  Christian love |  Family |  GBGM programs |  Health |  UMCOR |  United Methodist Church |  Geographic Region: Africa |  Source: GBGM Administration
	Print this page Email this article

Date posted: Aug 02, 2005