Mosquito/Malaria Control (34)
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Ok, I don't feel I understand the issues enough about aerial
spraying and all... just sharing my own thoughts based on per-
sonal experience.
I live in Lagos, Nigeria. I am a father to two young ones, aged
seven and five. A couple of years back when I was living in a
densely-populated area of Lagos, I bought bednets for the entire
family. We never used them for up to a week. Why? We threw them
away. My kids slept inside them for two nights and developed
heat rashes all over their face and bodies. Not the problem of
the bednets, but the problem of frequent power outages in Lagos,
where (unless you are very rich and can afford generators), sev-
eral nights you go to sleep without light. If there's no power
to turn on your fan or airconditioner - especially in the dry
season - you sleep under bednets, you develop heat rashes, with
the congestion in Lagos and all. Even if you have a generator,
you don't want to put it on throughout the night for fear of
carbon monoxide poisoning. It was less conscionable for me to
risk my kids getting bitten by mosquitoes, than have them go to
school every morning with their faces covered in heat rashes.
Go to many of the more densely-populated areas of Lagos in the
dry months of January to April. People stay outside their rooms
in the open till late at night, because the heat in the rooms is
too oppressive. Nobody will sleep under bednets in such weather!
Which is why I kind of support the argument that campaigning for
bednets is not enough. If you give bednets to every family in
Lagos, chances are very few will use it until you solve the
electricity supply problem. Nobody will sleep under heat-
producing bednets in the hot dry season weather, unless they
have the ceiling fan or the airconditioner working through the
night.
And who says mosquitoes only bite when you are in bed? In the
rainy season, if you open your car door for too long in a mos-
quito-infested area, they get in and you get bitten by mosqui-
toes while driving, even in an air-conditioned car. It has hap-
pened to me!
We need solutions more sustainable and practical than bednets.
Omololu Falobi
Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) Nigeria
mailto:omololu@nigeria-aids.org
http://www.nigeria-aids.org