Success Stories
US Malaria Effort Helps to Save Lives in Angola
In Angola, children suffer most from malaria - but USAID is leading the way in fighting this scourge.
Photo: PRI
Recently, USAID spoke with Mr. Antonio Perreira, a manager in the anti-malaria spraying effort in the southern Angolan city of Lubango. As both a resident of Lubango and a soldier in the war against this disease, malaria is an issue that lies very close to his heart.
Antonio emphasized the desperate need for anti-malarial work. He said, "Malaria is the greatest danger to health in the neighborhoods and communities of Lubango, especially in outlying areas where basic sanitation is often lacking."
Although it is a threat to all levels of society, Antonio said that malaria posed the greatest danger to the young. "It is most dangerous for the children. [For them,] malaria is often not diagnosed quickly enough." Antonio knows from personal experience. "I've seen friends and family whose children were taken to the hospital and never returned." Although it was too late for them, there is hope for the future.
Angola is among the first countries to benefit from the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), a $1.2 billion, five-year U.S. government initiative to control malaria in Africa.
Antonio's city, Lubango, has been one of the first to benefit. A PMI-supported spraying campaign between December 2005 and March 2006 in homes in the malaria prone southern Angolan cities of Lubango and Ondjiva resulted in the protection of 555,000 people and 210 spray personnel being trained. Indoor residual spraying is an effective malarial prevention method because the simple action of wall spraying provides protection for up to six months. It kills the mosquitoes that enter the house before they can infect someone.
Yet, the work does not end here. The next step begins in July 2006, when USAID is partnering in the countrywide distribution of 830,000 long life insecticide-treated mosquito nets (LLITN) to children under age five and pregnant women as part of a combined nationwide measles vaccination/ITN distribution campaign. The campaign is expected to achieve nationwide ITN coverage of approximately 30 percent of pregnant women and under-five children.
Working in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and ExxonMobil, USAID is participating in a number of campaigns to reduce illness and death from malaria in Angola.
