A father attends Child Health Week with his one-year-old daughter, Julie

Chris is a new father who brought his young daughter to the Chipata Health Clinic in Lusaka to benefit from the health services offered during the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Child Health Week last November. One-year-old Julie had just been weighed by clinic staff, and was found to be growing healthy and strong. Malaria is a serious problem where Chris and his family live, and Julie has already survived malaria during her young life. Her parents brought her to the clinic when she became sick, and health staff provided state-of-the-art treatment medicine that made their daughter well again, but Chris acknowledges that the toll of the disease can be overwhelming. “Malaria is a very, very bad disease. You don’t eat, you have a fever, diarrhea, you feel very weak. It can take your life within a week or maybe two weeks,” he says. As beneficiaries of Zambia’s ambitious national malaria control plan, Chris and his family have had their house sprayed with insecticides to kill and repel mosquitoes that transmit malaria. When asked about the impact of the program, Chris says it has been a long time since he or his family have been sick and he smiles. “There are no more mosquitoes—we are very happy!”

Photo: PATH.