Reflections on the lake, Malawi

Here is a small fact. You are going to die.
— Markus Zusak, The Book Thief (p.1)

It is a hard concept to grasp that a tiny organism can debilitate a human. Not just the parasite, but the carrier that drifts through the air. She is a silent killer. She finds holes in the mesh net at night but does not sneak in to be irritating or loud. No one is ever aware of her presence. Even after she has attended to her business, it is like she was never there. She is after all, a crafty anopheles mosquito.

The fever made teeth chatter rapidly. Temperatures went up an down. I was freezing but soaked from sweat. My body ached and the taste in my mouth was like when you lick an empty spoon. Metal. It made me nauseous and unable to taste anything else. I couldn't stand and it even hurt laying still on a flat surface. My brain felt like it was about to explode, like it had swollen in the skull. Every thought was completely irrational or an assembled illusion of insanity. I was being poisoned by a person trying to kill me. No, I was just really hungover and needed a paracetamol. No, a deadly strain of malaria was being carried in the cells of my blood and liver.

The disease kills one million people each year, 90% of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. In Malawi, it is normal practice, like a common cold or stomach parasite to see a patient with malaria. However for most patients, the common choice of treatment is to simply live with the parasite in its uncomplicated form and hope it subsides due to the high cost of treatment. For children and mothers, this decision is fatal. Even for those treating the disease with the cheapest malaria drugs available, there is a significant risk that the strain is resistant and will remain untreated. Like a tattoo plastered on the skin forever, the strain stays dormant in the blood as a reminder of what a microscopic parasite can do to a healthy human. For me, this reminder also sheds light on an issue affecting millions and the health intervention required across sub-Saharan Africa to prevent unnecessary deaths by a microscopic organism.