Stomping Out Malaria
The month of May heralds the beginning of the rainy season throughout Benin. Farmers prepare their fields, and temperatures fall. While everyone welcomes these advantages to rain, the ambitious rise of puddles and filling catchments (even those unintended) can create breeding grounds for the world's least favorite buzzer, the mosquito. Mosquitoes make for annoying and itchy evening in the United States, but in Benin the Anopheles mosquito can transmit malaria. Malaria is a disease most everyone recognizes but knows little about. It's caused by a parasite with symptoms of fever, chills, head and body aches, and even anemia and respiratory distress. It resembles and is treated like the flu, but even mild cases can take their turn for the worse and become fatal if not diagnosed and treated within 24 hours. Diagnoses confirm cases through blood samples, and oral medication for a few days can treat even the worst cases. That makes malaria preventable. Avoid mosquitoes by sl