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News/Event Item
Health Campaigns in Africa Suffer From Overlap
Dec 22, 2006
by Celia W. Dugger
In this poor, dusty village of 550 people, four babies died of malaria in October, among them 11-month-old Yire Are. As word spread that the government would be handing out mosquito nets that prevent malaria, his uncle made sure he was there with his own children, their heads shaved in mourning.
"I came to claim a mosquito net," the uncle, Konyiri Doorkono, said firmly. But he and many of the village's families got much more. Children gulped down drops of polio vaccine, vitamin A and deworming medicine. They howled at the prick of a measles shot.
They had joined a campaign to better children's odds of surviving to their fifth birthdays. It reached into even the most remote communities in Ghana over five days in November. Similarly monumental drives unfolded in eight other countries across Africa this year, with the mosquito nets alone expected to save the lives of 370,000 children over the next three years.
Copyright 2006 International Herald Tribune
For the Full Article, visit
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/22/news/ghana.php
category: News from Other Sources : General Health News
contributed by Olga Zhuykova on 22 December 2006
Africa :
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