Fighting Malaria Together Newsletter - August 2011

Interview: Involving civic leaders in the fight against malaria
An interview with Enock Kapalu, District Commissioner, Northwestern Zambia

In July 2011, a two-day training in Zambia taught civic leaders about malaria, and strengthened their ability to be leaders in the fight against the disease.

What did you think of the workshop?

The workshop has given me a better understanding of malaria, how it is caused, spread, and treated. We have neglected talking about malaria, when it is one of the diseases that affects us so in the districts. A number of people have died because of this disease. So my coming here has given me the picture of how I should approach malaria in my district. So that we put our efforts together, working hand in hand to make sure we are educated.

This workshop has helped us to understand how to prevent and treat malaria, and how the tools that are used in prevention of malaria benefit the community. For example, in our district, we find that most of our people are fishermen. And I have heard there are some people that use mosquito nets for fishing. So it is good to incorporate malaria at all levels, and not just rely on the Ministry of Health. In our area, the health staff are very few, but when we involve the community and the traditional leaders and government officers, we can better reduce malaria in the district.

What is an example of how you will apply what you’ve learned in the last two days?

I will discuss the orientation to incorporate heads of the department and stakeholders, and I plan to work hand-in-hand with the department to manage the logistics to better distribute nets. Some of our villages are very far apart, so a better use of resources—like using canoes and oxcarts—will help make sure everybody gets nets. I plan to be directly involved—as someone in the workshop said, if you are not effective, you will be affected. Even if you don’t suffer from malaria, your child or relative can. We also need to be aggressively talking about malaria—campaign and advocate—to reduce malaria in Chivuma. The next time we meet in a workshop like this, I’d like to be able to say that the number of children with malaria in Chivuma is zero.

Do you sleep under a bednet every night?

Yes, I do. Every one of my children also sleeps under a net at night. When I arrived here, there were no nets, so I personally went to the Copperbelt and bought them myself. But recently I was traveling for work and I forgot to bring a net with me. There were so many mosquitoes I couldn’t sleep and days later, I started feeling very hot. I was tested and found out I had malaria. Luckily, I was treated.

Would you recommend this orientation?

Yes—everyone was very happy to be a part of this workshop. It would be a great help to see this scaled down to even the district level. A lot of people will benefit and it will go a long way to help fight the disease.