I’ve been pondering all summer about what I must do to make my summer productive. I do try to accomplish my summer list little by little, but it’s just not very fulfilling. Or maybe I’m just that lazy. But really, I’m looking for something more. And now, I think I just found it. Yoohoo!

I heard of the OAmbassadors from my mom. I wanted to be part of them. I want to be able to help like them – going around the world and doing the work with their bare hands. I’ll get there. But for now, I can only take little steps. I want to pull as many people as I can into this but to do that, I first have to show them that I myself have passion in doing this.

Here it goes.

On this page from OAmbassadors, you can check out ways on how you can help them change the world.

Malaria

According to the WHO (World Health Organization):

Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, which is transmitted via the bites of infected mosquitoes. In the human body, the parasites multiply in the liver, and then infect red blood cells.

Symptoms of malaria include fever, headache, and vomiting, and usually appear between 10 and 15 days after the mosquito bite. If not treated, malaria can quickly become life-threatening by disrupting the blood supply to vital organs. In many parts of the world, the parasites have developed resistance to a number of malaria medicines.

Key interventions to control malaria include: prompt and effective treatment with artemisinin-based combination therapies; use of insecticidal nets by people at risk; and indoor residual spraying with insecticide to control the vector mosquitoes.

Furthermore, malaria is common in tropical areas/climates. The symptoms tend to reappear continuously. The disease can be treated with medication, but it has the tendency to recur after being cured. Malaria is endemic (one that occurs frequently in a particular location) in many developing countries.

As have said earlier, some particular parasites have already developed resistance to particular drugs - like the chloroquine. It is one safe, effective, inexpensive, and widely used antimalarial drug but it can no longer be used in most areas of the world because the malaria parasites have developed resistance to it. (CDC)

That is why institutions like the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Preventions) continue to search and develop new drug resistance monitoring systems based on: 1) identifying parasite molecular markers to help determine if a person is infected with a potentially drug-resistant parasite, and 2) growing live parasites from patients in the laboratory to see if they are starting to become resistant to currently recommended drugs.

Without the use of these methods, the only practical way to determine whether the malaria parasite is becoming resistant is to directly observe dozens of patients with malaria while they take a recommended antimalarial drug and then follow them for 4-6 weeks to observe how quickly and completely they recover. However, this is logistically difficult: many people who go to health facilities for treatment live far from the facility, and finding enough malaria-infected patients is getting more and more difficult as malaria control efforts succeed and malaria transmission falls.

Stats on Malaria (from CDC)

·        Forty-one percent of the world's population live in areas where malaria is transmitted (e.g., parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Central and South America, Hispaniola, and Oceania).

·        Each year 350–500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.

·        In areas of Africa with high malaria transmission, an estimated 990,000 people died of malaria in 1995 – over 2700 deaths per day, or 2 deaths per minute.

·        In 2002, malaria was the fourth cause of death in children in developing countries, after perinatal conditions (conditions occurring around the time of birth), lower respiratory infections (pneumonias), and diarrheal diseases. Malaria caused 10.7% of all children's deaths in developing countries.

·        In Malawi in 2001, malaria accounted for 22% of all hospital admissions, 26% of all outpatient visits, and 28% of all hospital deaths. Not all people go to hospitals when sick or having a baby, and many die at home. Thus the true numbers of death and disease caused by malaria are likely much higher.

How to prevent Malaria? Basically, all you have to do is prevent yourself from getting bitten by mosquitoes.

Promote bed nets. You can donate if you want. Visit Malaria No More.

Today is World Malaria Day. Spread the word. You are free to copy this piece.

References:

http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/features/wmd2009.htm

http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/cdcactivities/index.htm

http://oambassadors.org/global

http://oambassadors.org/global/take-action

http://www.who.int/topics/malaria/en/

https://give.malarianomore.org/SSLPage.aspx?pid=184&srcid=184

http://www.faqs.org/health/Sick-V3/Malaria.html

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• Study Chinese. She wants me to. And before she asked me to, I already wanted to learn the language.
• Fix my room. This always appear in my list. I can't seem to escape it.
• Take driving lessons. I'm gonna have to ask my dad to teach me. He's not a good driver. I'm not sure if he'll teach me what's proper. He drives like a mad race car driver. (He drives a bulky Pajero. Who in the right mind would drive 70-80 kilometers per hour around the neighborhood?) But I think it's better to learn from him than to learn from my grandfather who never goes over 80. (Right. Maybe I'd just like to learn those cool things I see in the movies. His driving amuses me. Especially that he does it with an SUV. Haha.)
• Read. I have a lot of unread books in my drawer and I'm still planning on buying those novels that seem interesting. When we went to Bulacan, my grandmother organized her bookshelf and set apart my aunt's old books for me and my sisters to read. Well, Yanna's not really into reading so I got almost everything and left the spanish dramas and Othello. :)) Here's all that I have to read for summer. Yeah, right. For the whole year maybe but I have to read as much as I can to show my mom I'm not such a bum.