Real Life Stories
ukAndy
Yeah malaria, it’s just like having the flu.’ That seemed to be the consensus among my fellow volunteers and travellers when I arrived in Ghana for a newspaper internship.
But aside from the blase attitude, no one seemed to have much first-hand experience of the disease that we had heard so much about – mainly from Western doctors loading us up with expensive pills.
Sure, the medical volunteers saw their fair share, but their routine encounters made malaria seem all the more part of everyday African life.
Such a gung-ho attitude meant I was totally unconcerned after stopping taking my doxycyclene following a photosensitive reaction. Besides, the antibiotics didn’t exactly help my alcohol tolerance and, hey, malaria’s just like the flu isn’t it?
I had one more phase of fever to cope with before the drugs started to do their thing – and the last onset was the most unpleasant
Not really. The first sign I had erred was the arrival of a thumping headache and general drowsiness a few weeks later. I lost my appetite and any food I did eat didn’t exactly take long to leave my digestive system!
That passed after a day or two and I was back to normal – until the symptoms came on stronger with an added fever. I obviously looked pretty ropey, so my medic friends took me for a blood test, the results of which saw me given 2/5 for levels of malaria bacteria in my blood. Not a top score, but it felt unpleasant enough to me.
I was prescribed some serious antibiotics as well as an industrial quantity of ibuprofen, which helped, and packed off to buy the not-very-cheap drugs from a pharmacy.
But the worst was still to come. I had one more phase of fever to cope with before the drugs started to do their thing – and the last onset was the most unpleasant. I could only lie around in a daze unable to eat anything, and when I did try to drink a bag of water I simply threw it up within a couple of minutes. That, it seemed, could become a serious problem.
Luckily, I was much improved the next morning. Almost back to normal in fact, which just shows how viciously a bout of malaria can come on and how quickly it can be beaten with the right treatment.
All in all, my experience with the disease was a very mild one. But I learned that malaria is not to be underestimated – definitely more serious than a mere bout of the flu!
More real life stories
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Clair Drage
Clair completed two impressive feats of endurance within the space of a month to raise funds for the fight against malaria.
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Gwynedd Quilters
During 2010, I taught a group of friends patchwork and quilting. We are all family women with everything we could wish for.
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Paul Albrow
In May 2010, I saw my cousin take part in and complete the Great Manchester 10km Run; the challenge of completing the 2011 Run was passed on to me.
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Bismark Amankwaah, Physician's Assistant
Bismark is on the front line of the malaria fight in his role as a Physician’s Assistant at Ejura hospital. “Around 70% of the 200 patients we see every day are suspected to have malaria. There are only two hospitals in this district and people come far to get here. Sometimes they come too late with severe malaria and it can be fatal.
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Shoshana Court
In January, when I came to Sekondi/Takoradi on the West Coast of Ghana, I was so excited!
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Thomas Sandow, Ghanaian Malaria Volunteer, 28
I volunteer with a malaria prevention project in my community, Dromankuma, in Ghana’s Ashanti Region. Volunteering was an easy decision for me: I want to do all I can to help prevent others from going through the pain endured by my two year old daughter Irene when she had severe malaria last year.
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Helvi Kashuku, Field Worker
Helvi is an experienced 34 year old field worker with the Malaria No More UK supported malaria prevention programme in northern Namibia. She is motivated by her own personal experience of malaria, having seen her 12 year old brother suffer from the disease and spend time in hospital
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Doreen Tetteh
New Mum Doreen and her husband live with their six month old baby boy, John, in Ghana, a country where 100% of the population are at risk from malaria.
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Kedibonye Motlalepula
Mum of three Kedibonye often worries about whether her children will catch malaria. Two of them are under five years old and therefore at heightened risk from severe malaria – which can be deadly in young children.
