Free, Cheap, Simple Practical Solutions As Malaria Raids

The Bulletin Media continues to receive concerning reports of cases of malaria breakouts coming through from several parts of the country.

Now we take it upon ourselves and into our own hands to suggest several practical and simple preventative measures aware that the festive season is around the corner followed by the new school calendar year both of which are predictably going to drain the already depleted finances of Ugandans as they struggle to provide a decent Xmas for their children, relatives, and dependants and also put aside funds to use to take care of the school fees and other educational materials as learners warm up to return to school for the new year school calendar. 

Breakouts of malaria fever are not occurring as a surprise given that it has been raining cats and dogs [heavily] for the last couple of months. Rain comes with running and stagnant water which are favorable breeding places for mosquitoes that cause and spread malaria through their bites that deposit vectors in our bodies responsible for burdening us with malaria and fever. Rain also rejuvenates and replenishes the soil, giving way to tall grasses, bushes, and thickets which are conducive hiding places for mosquitoes where they retreat after biting us and infect us with malaria

Community Action

Rainwater also creates holes at best and gullies at worst as it runs and flows over the earth’s surfaces, leaving behind some water trapped in those holes and gullies where mosquitoes lay their eggs, hatching into new and young mosquitoes. Subsequently, the first practical measure to take to prevent and eliminate malaria from our midst is to care and mind to remove the tall overgrown grasses, bushes, and thickets around our dwellings and also to prune the overgrown tree branches and other overgrown parts of the plants around our homes to deny the mosquitoes where to hide before and after biting us.

What would be the ideal thing to do would be to remove the bushes and thickets and long grasses where the mosquitoes hide together. Jointly as a community just as it was done in the past through bulungi bwansi[community self-help initiatives] but since a new culture of selfishness for myself and God for all of us, has since been cultivated by us and taken root in Uganda, each one of us and his family members can as well go it alone to guard themselves against attacks of malaria. It’s also necessary to remove and eliminate the breeding grounds from our surroundings where female mosquitoes lay eggs and therefore eliminate the young and new mosquitoes that continue to infect us with malaria fever.

Mosquito Nets, Balanced Diets, and Hydration

The main breeding grounds for mosquitoes to attack are holes in the ground where running rainwater collects and gets trapped, providing favorable grounds for mosquitoes to lay their eggs, hatch into new mosquitoes, continue the cycle of mosquito bites, and infect us with malaria. While we are credibly doing that, it is imperative to remember and also make it a point to sleep under mosquito nets which are treated with mosquito repellants to stop the mosquitoes from accessing and biting us, depositing the malaria-causing vectors into our bodies, leaving us sick with fever.

Everyone should be provided with a mosquito net, not adults alone if we are serious about stopping malaria, which can ultimately spare us the financial cost that comes with treating the sick, save us the precious time spent in hospitals while the sick are undergoing treatment, unnecessarily adding on the backlog of patients frequenting public hospitals, putting to gainful use money government uses to treat diseases which can be avoided through simple and easy preventative measures, helping us to keep ourselves healthy and steady and out of unnecessary and easily avoidable trouble.

On a rallying call, the government and our elected leaders both at the national and local administration levels can assist in providing mosquito nets to those financially challenged and therefore unable to procure nets for themselves after all healthy people are the ones who can vote for them in future and even engage in developmental work for their benefit and the gain of the country.

Holistic Approaches

We should endeavor to feed on well-balanced diets containing greens which now that the rain is here are available and can be easily cultivated right within our courtyards, feed on proteins, vitamins, fruits carbohydrates, and such to replenish our body defenses to be able to fight and withstand malaria once we are infected with it and to fight off the vectors that cause it. Before and in case we are infected with malaria, we should replenish our body sources with clean, boiled, and well-kept water to help stop us from getting dehydrated and to have enough water required to flush out of our bodies dirty and unhygienic substances and vectors killed by our body defenses.

Water is one of the principal things required and used in the critical process of digestion of food and ejection of waste products from our digestion system and also used in the equally vital process of pumping as well as circulation of blood around the body systems such as the brain and which help to cool the body crucial systems as a whole generally and keep our bodies hydrated. Additionally, in case we are infected, we should avoid self-medication and only take drugs prescribed and recommended to us for use to treat malaria by fully qualified health persons. 

This is important since not all malaria is the same neither is each type of malaria treated using the same drugs or medication, making it vital and important to visit a medical doctor to assess and determine the type of malaria a given victim is infected with in order for the medical personnel to determine the right drugs and medication to prescribe for a given patient, helping his proper healing.

Mosquito-Proofing Your Home

To wrap it up, avoid mosquitoes and their bites, using the simple solutions we have stated above, save money and precious time spent treating malaria, and see a qualified medical doctor once you are infected with malaria to avoid quacks out to con you of your hard-earned money and stay safe and in high spirits. Note, that the writer is not a trained medical doctor himself but merely offers simple and practical preventative solutions for Ugandans to use to combat malaria. Any qualified medical doctor is welcome to offer more added information, clarifications, and corrections where it’s necessary and warranted using our contacts and such courtesy will be very much appreciated.