According to the World Health Organization, less than 1% of DRC children under five years of age sleep under protective nets. This results in most of them suffering six to ten malaria-related fever incidents per year. The disease also accounts for 45% of childhood mortality, which overall runs to 20%. In short, malaria kills nearly one in ten children in the Congo every year.

As Valerie Grey learns in my novel, Heart of Diamonds, continuous armed conflict in the country is responsible for many of these deaths. Medical supplies can’t be distributed when roads, railroads, and airstrips have been destroyed. Treatment can’t be delivered by medical personnel who have been chased from their clinics and hospitals. People driven from their homes, plagued by malnutrition, inadequate shelter, and lack of sanitary facilities are weak and less capable of warding off disease. War creates a breeding ground for death by malaria just as surely as swamps full of stagnant water breed anopheles mosquitoes.

Although the intensity of conflict has decreased since the truce of 2003 and democratic elections of 2006, millions of displaced persons still struggle to survive and hot spots remain in the eastern and western provinces. Collapsed infrastructure has severely weakened the health system in the DRC, and the strengthening process is a slow one.

The DRC, unfortunately, has little to celebrate this World Malaria Day.

1. Nets are very helpful, but do not solve the problem. Mosquitos do not come out between Midnight and 6am for the convenience of all and there is always that recalcitrant mosquito which found his way into the net and which you are trying to find all night long.
2. The Malaria vaccine is very important because it is a long-lasting injection. Most people affected by the Anepholes mosquito cannot afford Malaria meds; if they can, they will go to the chemist only to find often expired meds, and even if they buy them and they are not expired, they are not used to, as Westerners are,taking them on a daily or weekly basis. That is why a long-lasting anti-Malarial injection is best;
3. It is more important probably than any of the above that those wet and swampy areas where the mosquitoes breed be vigilantly treated so that eventually, Malaria can be iradicated from Africa as it has been in Italy and other countries.

By all means, nets are wonderful, but nothing done in isolation, while helpful, will solve the problem.

The anti-spam word is Stay