Community-Based Fight Against Malaria Working...( RICHMOND Va. April 21 -- Ndeye f...),Health

RICHMOND, Va., April 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ndeye from Senegal lost her first child when she contracted malaria. Pregnant with her second child, she was visited by a community health worker trained by Christian Children's Fund (CCF), who taught her how to use a bed net and take anti-malarial medication. From that point on, she slept under a bed net, and her pregnancy resulted in a healthy baby. On the other side of Africa in Uganda, 4 year-old Rebecca fell sick with malaria every two months until her mother, Nakayima, was directed to a CCF community health worker who taught her about prevention and control of malaria, and provided her with a bed net.

Stories such as Ndeye's and Nakayima's are becoming more common, but that hasn't always been the case. A child dies of malaria every 30 seconds. (That's 2,880 child deaths every DAY.) If they do survive, malaria robs children and infants of their lifelong potential at the most critical stage of their development and growth. During pregnancy, malaria causes low birth weight and cognitive deficits, and increases the risk of newborn and infant deaths. Lost work due to illness reduces families' income and food security and leads to greater impoverishment. It is estimated that malaria reduces the overall GDP of Africa by $12 billion a year.

"As part of our commitment to the health and development of children and their families worldwide, CCF supports community-based programming to prevent and treat malaria," said Anne Lynam Goddard, president and CEO of Christian Children's Fund. "Only by engaging communities as active partners in the fight against malaria can we effectively reach the communities most in need." In Senegal for example, CCF leads the President's Malaria Initiative in a collaborative effort to reach 85 percent of the most vulnerable children and women through major grants which included the purchase of 60 Yamaha motorcycles for nurses, community health workers and staff. With the
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