1. Roger, Linus Igwemezie (Head of the
Novartis Malaria Initiative), Perla, Manishha
and Martin Edlund (CEO of Malaria No More)
outside the African Medical and Research
Foundation (AMREF) clinic, Kibera. There are
four facilities like this one in Kibera. AMREF
has a catchment of 50,000 people, and here,
malaria is among the top 10 diseases for
children under five.
“People are working very hard to address the issue of malaria. It’s not being ignored. The problems that exist
are limitations on financial resources, drug availability, and prevention measures such as insecticidal bed
nets. These are the challenges – not apathy or neglect. Collaborating with people in this environment, and
providing the will to work together to prevent this problem, I believe, will go a long way.” Roger Waltzman
Cleaning the streets in Kibera, a Nairobi
neighborhood, is essential to avoid disease.
This is part of a government initiative with
the national youth service in Kenya.
Novartis associates visit Kenya with the Power of One
Jun 04, 2015 11:00 CET
Since 2013, Malaria No More’s Power of One campaign has raised funds to provide an incredible three
million complete courses of malaria treatment for children in Africa. Novartis has been a key partner since
the beginning, supporting the campaign financially and matching the treatments funded by the public.
It is an extraordinary success – and one in which our
associates also share: they contributed the funds to
provide nearly 500 000 of the donated treatments.
For three associates, the importance of that donation
became abundantly clear in March. Through their
contribution to the campaign, Roger Waltzman, Global
Program Head, Pharma Development, Perla
Maldonado, Technical Compliance and Support
Specialist, Alcon, and Manishha Patel, Postdoctoral
Fellow at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis
Research Foundation, won the chance to travel to
Kenya, to see for themselves what life is like for those
battling daily against one of the deadliest and most
prevalent diseases known to man.
The three-day trip began in Nairobi, with a visit to an
impoverished neighborhood, Kibera, and the health
workers that serve it. From here, the associates
travelled to the Kisumu region in the North West of
Kenya, where contrasting topography creates different
challenges for those tasked with treating the disease
and managing the risk it poses. Here, the associates
spent two days visiting factories, schools, clinics and
research centers, encountering people facing
unspeakable hardship as they struggle to find enough
work to fund basic essentials.
Kibera: a Nairobi neighborhood where mud huts roofed
with scrap metal jostle for space along muddy streets;
scavenging pigs root through piles of rubbish, and slow-
moving streams and stagnant, litter-filled puddles
provide the perfect breeding ground for all types of
diseases.
Visiting is an eye-opening experience. Manishha notes:
“The real challenge poor communities face is educating
people and providing access to clean water. It is one of
the most important ways of improving the situation in
Kibera, and elsewhere in Kenya.”
In Kisumu, Western Kenya, the problem is different.
Bordering Lake Victoria, Kisumu sits on lush, fertile
land, and its two annual rainy seasons make it the ideal
home for the large-scale production of sugar cane. But
the rains that make the land ripe for cultivation also
foster the rapid growth of the mosquito populations that
cause malaria.
Here, many of the workers at the Mumias Sugar
Company have had the disease themselves.
Mumias runs its own privately funded clinic, providing
healthcare for all its employees and their families – for
free. An average of 100 malaria patients require
medical assistance each day in peak season. Yet
resources are limited. Health workers rely on time-
consuming microscopy to identify the disease, and
supplies of treatments are not always adequate.
But while conditions are not ideal, privately run clinics
like this one can have a significant impact on life for
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2. Sugar cane being harvested and transported
in Kisumu.
Manishha holds a piece of molasses during a
tour of the Mumias Sugar Company.
Perla visiting the children at a school in
Kombewa.
local people. To see a contrasting public health facility
in a rural area, the team also visited the District
Hospital in Kombewa. It is centers such as this one that
are in the greatest need of the support provided by
initiatives like the Power of One.
As the head of Novartis Pharmaceuticals’ antimalarial
treatment development program, Roger notes that
visiting health centers like this one has brought a whole
new perspective to his day-to-day work:
“I cannot overestimate how important this experience
has been. It’s invaluable for me to make a personal
connection with people who can actually get things
done! But meeting the people on the front line, and
hearing about the practical issues they face – from
affording medication, to distributing bed nets, and
identifying better prevention strategies – has given me
a whole new level of understanding about the nature of
the challenge we face.”
Find out more about the associates’ extraordinary
experience of Kenya, and see photos and videos of their
trip here. You can also read an account of the visit in
Manishha’s own words on the NIBR website, here. Visit
the Novartis Malaria Initiative website to find out how
Novartis is leading the charge in the battle against
malaria here, and for an insight into the perils of acting
as surrogate ‘mom’ to a colony of malaria-infected
mosquitos, read ‘Raising the Deadly’ on the NIBR
website here.
References
1
Unicef Malaria Factsheet, available at URL:
http://www.unicef.org/health/files/health_africamalaria.
pdf
2
WHO Malaria Report 2014, available at:
http://www.who.int/malaria/publications/world_malaria
_report_2014/en/
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