Malaria, malaria and again malaria....

There is a lot of malaria at the moment, last week several staff members tested positive for the malaria test. With malaria it is always different, sometimes you are really sick, but other times you take your medicines and you can still work. So I am glad that not everybody has to stay in bed, otherwise it would really create problems. Also several of the children had malaria, because of their HIV+ status, I always be careful and let them stay home from school, at least the first day. The last two days I have been busy with Charles (left picture) and Joseph (right picture). Charles had malaria and we have been treating him, but still he was not well, high fever, vomiting, so we took him again for a test, still malaria, I had to give him injections for three days, still the same, so on Tuesday he had to go on IV Quinine drip. That is the last medicines we have, it is not an easy medicines, you get ringing in your ears, you feel nauseated and it makes you weak, but the malaria parasite is gone. The way you get this is that you get a drip for four hours, then a rest of four hours, then again on drip for four hours, and that goes for 3 or 4 doses. It takes long and I was up and down in the night, checking the IV, taking it down, then 4 hours later put it back up. I had two patients, Joseph was also really down from the malaria. I really feel for both of them, Joseph is so weak, he can hardly walk. And he still hears the ringing in his ears, which makes him dizzy. But the IV drip is finished for both of them, so now we wait to see them pick up again. 

On this picture you see Margaret and her little brother, last week we took them in Amecet because their mother got an acute psychiatric problem. She had to be admitted in the psychiatric ward, the NGO which helped the lady, asked us to take the children. At first the little boy cried a lot, but now they enjoy their time here, they play and they interact with the other children. On Friday I went to the hospital to check on their mother. She was a bit better, but still very confused, she refused to take tablets. The mother is HIV+ and she also refuses her ARV medicines. That is not good, the NGO organization found the family in the village and brought the father of the mother to care for her in the hospital. I asked him if he could let us know if anything was changing. Today we got the message that the mother escaped from the hospital, together with her father. They are already gone for 4 days, and we have her children.... The NGO has to go to the village to find the family and see how the situation is there. Margaret and her brother enjoy the food, the toys and are easy to handle now. we did test them for HIV and they are both HIV-!!! That is great news.