Every child deserves a 5th birthday

Although it's the tail end, April is Blog about Malaria Month (BAMM), and yesterday- the 25th- was World Malaria Day, so here's a little something about what's going on with our malaria-related work here.

For the past couple of years, Senegal has been working to achieve universal mosquito net coverage; the goal is for every sleeping area in every house across the country to have a mosquito net treated with long-lasting insecticide. The campaign is accompanied by education to help people use and maintain their nets properly, and to have every member of the family sleep under a net every night throughout the whole year. The net distributions have covered the majority of the country already, prioritizing regions with very high rates. Here in the Louga region, we're on the verge of our very own distribution. The program looks like this:

• April 8th: Peace Corps' very own Jessie Seiler and Mike Toso, who work on coordinating nation-wide malaria efforts, drove all the way from Dakar to our little desert haven of Linguere to get us in the loop about the master plan. It being Easter Sunday, the meeting was followed by a successful and delicious easter-mango hunt.
• April 17th: Mac, Andrew, and I headed to the regional capital of Louga for a meeting with project coordinators and hospital officials about big-picture logistics (stay tuned for photos). Being in the big city and all, we got to eat delicious ceebu jen (rice and fish) and drink ice cold juice.
• April 18th-19th: I went to the training for hospital and health post staff in the district of Linguere for a look at the local specifics. Again, they fed us delicious lunch...
• April 20th: Mac and I met with Linguere hospital staff to clarify our role in the distribution. We'll be attending future trainings, supporting health workers in each of our sites, helping to teach community health volunteers about net use and how to make mosquito repellant with neem tree leaves, and holding a city-wide malaria awareness event in Linguere. After the meeting, we hunkered down to apply for a USAID small projects grant to support our programming.
• Beginning around May 10th, and lasting 45 days (if all goes as scheduled), trainings for health hut staff and community health volunteers will begin, followed by village-wide censuses throughout the region, verification of census results, net distribution, and home visits by health volunteers.
• Towards the end of all the official programming, us PCVs will accompany hospital staff on a district-wide tournament to emphasize key points about net use and care, teach about making mosquito repelling neem lotion, and finally hold our big malaria event in Linguere.

Malaria's a big problem here in Senegal, as I've seen too much evidence of, and it's really exciting to be a part of such a widespread and well-coordinated effort to get rid of it all together. Peace Corps is playing a huge role in all of it- and not just in Senegal- check out http://stompoutmalaria.org/ if you want to see what other volunteers across Africa are working on.

Until next time- the wonderful Emily Naftalin and I are headed to Cape Verde for an island vacation. My mosquito net is packed.