Recently I was carrying on what I thought was a sensible conversation with a young man until he uttered strange things. I was actually berating him for dressing shabbily and he said that since he had woken up at 4 am in the morning he considered it too cold to take a bath at that hour.
According to him a cold bath in the morning causes malaria. I was aghast and stared at the pretentious lad, like was I really in 2012? Then I asked him what happened to the fact that mosquitoes spread malaria? Then he looked at me as if I was crazy and argued why is it that it is during the colder season that more people suffer from fevers.
I patiently explained to him that not every fever is a result of malaria and there is no connection between a healthy cold shower in the morning and a fever let alone malaria. I assumed that since the young man had completed seven years of primary school could read and write I wrongly assumed he understood correctly how malaria is spread.
Well leave alone reading and writing aren't the radio and television messages on malaria that too complicated to understand by a particular section of the masses? Or do humans selectively decide on what they want to hear and comprehend?
For example I remember some members of my household queued up for hours to get brand new insecticide treated bed nets local government offices. On getting home they refused to use the nets saying that the treated nets are poisonous.
I on the other hand quickly mounted mine and others for the children and was so happy to have a net that mosquitoes respected. I can assure you that the non converts of the treated nets have suffered malaria more than twice ever since we got the nets and neither have they returned the free nets.
Ignorance breeds superstition and as a few members of society manipulate the mindset of many into believing was it not basically true. On another occasion I let out a scream when I saw the classic example of a malnourished child, protruding belly, sandy brown hair and scaly skin wearing a worn out talisman around her neck.
The talisman had left a rash on her neck. I think I embarrassed the poor mother who was the wife of our gardener. She quickly ran to fetch her husband who sheepishly said that the talisman was a cure for flu.
Not buying the story the cock and bull story I then slowly over time educated the mother on how to better feed her daughter. It took time and loads of patience as the daughters health improved with better feeding and many rounds of deworming. The talisman was finally taken off and the child was so much happier.
For a healthier population health workers and communicators have quite a long way to go but then; we who are in the know should not be afraid of sharing the correct knowledge we have gained with people who know us.
