2004-8-1
This is Robert Cohen with the VOA Special English Development
Report.
Today we report on some national programs against malaria.
In Zambia, the disease killed at least twenty thousand children
in the year two-thousand-one. Now Zambia has money from the Global Fund to
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This money is to buy new and
more costly medicines that treat malaria.
Government and private groups are
both involved in this effort. Religious groups that provide health
care are also giving people bed nets treated with chemicals. These
kill the mosquitoes that spread malaria.
Tanzania became the first government in Africa to end all taxes
on treated bed nets. Pregnant women will receive one free of charge.
Local stores will get money for the nets from an organization
financed by the Global Fund.
Nearly all the nets used are made in Tanzania. Officials say
seventy percent of homes in Tanzania should have at least one
chemically treated bed net by two-thousand-six.
The United States Agency for
International Development has a program called NetMark. The purpose
is to make treated nets easier to get in several African countries.
These include Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal.
More than six hundred thousand bed nets were purchased in these
countries through NetMark in two-thousand-two. It is important to
treat the nets with chemicals again after six months. So NetMark
also makes that possible. In addition, a mining company in Zambia
developed a chemical to be sprayed in five cities to kill
mosquitoes.
Experts say these ways to fight malaria are already working in
Vietnam. Local health care workers are trained to recognize and
treat the infection quickly. Pregnant women get medicine to prevent
malaria, and families receive free bed nets. Health workers in
Vietnam hope to reduce deaths from malaria by fifty percent over the
next five years.
In Sri Lanka, a local group called the Sarvodaya Malaria Project
prints materials about the disease. Children receive the information
in school.
Also, workers spray houses and plants to kill mosquitoes. Workers
close unused wells and waterways where the insects can lay eggs.
Health workers in Sri Lanka visit houses in villages. They make sure
families all know how to use nets on their beds, and how to re-treat
them.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Karen
Leggett. This is Robert Cohen.