Helping our students avoid the dangers of mosquitos and jiggers
Our Alumni put their skills to work to help students succeed. Here, CES 2008 graduate Metrine Mayende, now working as Community Health Medical Officer, inspects the feet of a child. She’s looking for signs of jiggers, a parasitic mite that lays its eggs under the skin, causing pain and itching.
As part of our ongoing series about life in Kenya and how CES helps smooth some of the more difficult aspects of this life, let’s look at the indigenous invertebrate population. Specifically, mosquitos and jiggers.
Mosquitos – a whole different level of danger
Mosquitos are found in much of the world, but they’re generally not particularly hazardous in places such as Canada. They are however annoying when camping, and they can carry hazardous diseases like the West Nile fever.
But mosquitos in Kenya can kill.
Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease that is particularly deadly for babies and young children. For our students in high school and university, it’s debilitating. There are few living in Kakamega County who have escaped having had malaria. Generally, it means cold sweats, fevers, weakness and other symptoms, and takes several days to recover. It slows them down for weeks afterwards. And while it has less of a chance of being fatal for teenagers and aduts, it still causes fatalities at all ages.
That’s why a mosquito net is a dominant feature of most hotel rooms in Kenya. Sometimes the net is very artistically and artfully arranged, but that’s just a disguise. Each night it’s essential to set out the net so that it forms an insect-proof enclosure around the bed.
Western Kenya and the coastal regions are particularly prone to malaria, due to their wet climate. The Kenyan government has made a strong push to increase the number of its citizens who sleep under a mosquito-proof net, but there’s a long way to go. Some nets being used are so old and worn that they have holes. Many parents can’t afford nets for their children at all.
Part of what we do for each student is to provide them with a functional, insecticide-treated mosquito net to sleep under.
And the students appreciate it. That’s partly because mosquitos can be annoying, and ruin a good night’s sleep, causing students to perform less well in school than they could. But it’s protection from malaria that makes our students particularly glad to shelter under a CES-provided net protecting them from harm.
Jiggers – a debilitating peril
One of the other perils students in Kenya face is jiggers. This account was written by CES Alumni Chairperson Juma Nyongesa, adapted from what Juma contributed to “Under the Acacia Tree,” available through the CES website.
“Jiggers (also spelled chiggers) are mites that enter into your toe or into your finger. These are defined as a tiny mite whose parasitic larvae live on or under the skin of warm-blooded animals, where they cause irritation and dermatitis and sometimes transmit scrub typhus. They begin eating up from inside, itching and then the area where they have infested, begins to form what we call a wound. The wound swells and it spreads across the flesh. So you find it could end up eating all your fingers and they become so painful.
For the young ones, if the toes have been affected, they cannot wear shoes, they cannot walk comfortably. Because it is itching, it is painful. It is impossible for the children to stay in school to learn comfortably. So most of them, even if they go to school, will focus on the jiggers and not concentrate on learning. To overcome that one, CES Alumni organized campaigns where we sensitized the community as a measure to overcome it. They need to maintain the highest possible level of cleanliness. They also need shoes to overcome (and prevent) that problem.
When you sensitize them about this and teach them how they can overcome it, the situation improves. We went back the following year and found an improved story with those same children. At least the jigger infestation was reduced and children could go to school comfortably in a pair of shoes that CES had given them. That was our first project as Alumni.”
CES Alumni have organized jiggers eradication programs. These involve students with medical training, who use razor blades to carefully make incisions in children’s feet and remove the jiggers under the skin. Without such treatment, children would find walking painful as the jiggers take over more of their foot area, making them unable to go to school or do their chores around the house. Intervention by CES Alumni helps prevent these problems.