What is malaria? What will the ELCA Malaria Campaign do about it?
Malaria is a disease contracted from the bite of an infected mosquito and affects all age groups—especially children, pregnant women and their unborn babies. It results in symptoms similar to the flu: fever, nausea, achiness, fatigue. If malaria is contracted by an older child or adult, it is possible (though not easy) to survive. But when the immune system is compromised, such as in infants and pregnant women, the likelihood of death from malaria rises. It is also impacted greatly by factors such as hunger and poverty, which further deplete the body’s ability to fight back once infected. Access to medications for treatment, and the ability to pay for them, keeps many malaria patients from receiving life-saving treatment and care. Lack of access to common methods of prevention, such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets, indoor residual spraying or water drainage, also contribute to malaria’s continuing death toll, especially in Africa. One in five childhood deaths in sub-Saharan Africa
