Health Education & Resources

Malaria

Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites and spread by the bite of infected Anopheles mosquitoes, which bite mainly at night. It remains one of the most common reasons people attend our campaigns, and it is most dangerous for children under five and pregnant women.

How to reduce your risk

• Sleep under an insecticide-treated net every night, all year, not only in the rainy season. Everyone in the household should be covered, and nets should be repaired or replaced when torn.
• Remove standing water around the home — old tyres, tins, buckets, blocked gutters and puddles are where mosquitoes breed.
• Cover up at night with long sleeves, and use screens on windows and doors where you can.
• Pregnant women should attend antenatal care, where preventive treatment for malaria in pregnancy is provided as part of routine care.
• Where seasonal preventive treatment is offered for young children in your area, take it up.

Symptoms

Fever, chills and sweating, headache, aching muscles and joints, tiredness, loss of appetite, nausea or vomiting. In young children malaria can present simply as fever, irritability, refusing to feed or drowsiness.

Get tested before taking treatment

Fever is not always malaria, and treating the wrong illness wastes time while the real cause gets worse. A rapid diagnostic test takes minutes. Do not treat yourself with leftover tablets from a previous illness, or with a partial course bought loose from a street seller. Incomplete or unnecessary treatment helps the parasite become resistant to the medicines that still work. If you are prescribed a course, finish all of it, even once you feel better.

High blood pressure (hypertension)

High blood pressure is one of the most common conditions our screening picks up, and one of the most dangerous, because it usually causes no symptoms at all until it has already done damage. Many people first learn they have it at one of our campaigns.

Left untreated it is a leading cause of stroke, heart failure and kidney disease. Blood pressure is generally considered raised when repeated readings are 140/90 mmHg or above, but only a clinician who has measured you properly can tell you where you stand.

Who is more at risk

• People over 40, and those with a family history of high blood pressure or stroke
• People who add a lot of salt, or eat a lot of salted, smoked and processed food and stock cubes
• People carrying excess weight, especially around the waist
• People who are physically inactive
• People who drink heavily or use tobacco

What actually helps

• Cut down salt. This includes seasoning cubes, salted fish and preserved foods, not just what you add at the table.
• Eat more fruit and vegetables, and less fried and fatty food.
• Move regularly — brisk walking most days is enough to make a difference.
• Reduce alcohol, and stop tobacco entirely.
• Take prescribed medication exactly as directed, and keep taking it.

Get your blood pressure checked

Because it is silent, the only way to know is to be measured. Blood pressure screening is free at every AFCA campaign, and takes under two minutes.

Diabetes and high blood sugar

Diabetes means the body cannot properly control the level of sugar (glucose) in the blood. Type 2 diabetes is by far the most common and is strongly linked to weight, diet and inactivity — though it also runs in families. Like hypertension, a great many people have it without knowing.

Warning signs

• Passing urine often, especially at night
• Being unusually thirsty, and drinking a lot
• Losing weight without trying
• Persistent tiredness
• Blurred vision
• Cuts, sores or wounds that heal slowly
• Repeated skin, gum or genital infections
• Numbness or tingling in the hands or feet

If several of these apply to you, ask for a blood sugar test. It is a finger-prick and a few seconds.

Why it matters

Uncontrolled diabetes damages the eyes, kidneys, nerves and blood vessels over time, and is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure and foot problems that can end in amputation. Controlled well, it is compatible with a full and normal life.

Living with diabetes

• Take medication as prescribed and attend follow-up appointments
• Reduce sugary drinks, sweets and refined starches; eat regular, balanced meals
• Stay physically active and manage your weight
• Check your feet every day for cuts, blisters or sores, wear shoes that fit, and get any wound that is not healing looked at quickly
• Have your eyes checked when you can

Pregnancy, newborn and child health

Most pregnancies and childhood illnesses go well. The deaths that do happen are very often preventable, and usually come down to two things: not attending antenatal care, and not recognising a danger sign early enough.

During pregnancy

• Start antenatal care early and attend regularly. The World Health Organization recommends at least eight antenatal contacts through a pregnancy. These visits pick up anaemia, high blood pressure, infection and problems with the baby’s growth while they can still be treated.
• Sleep under a treated net and take the preventive malaria treatment offered at antenatal care.
• Take the iron, folic acid and other supplements you are given.
• Plan a delivery with a skilled birth attendant and agree in advance how you will get to the facility, and who will take you.

Newborns and young children

• Breastfeed within the first hour after birth, and give only breast milk for the first six months — no water, no other food.
• From six months, continue breastfeeding while introducing varied complementary foods.
• Complete the childhood immunisation schedule. Vaccines are the cheapest protection your child will ever get, and missed doses can be caught up.
• Attend growth monitoring so that faltering weight is spotted early.

Water, hygiene and sanitation

A large share of the illness we treat at campaigns — diarrhoea, typhoid, worms, skin and eye infections — is spread through unsafe water, poor sanitation and unwashed hands. These are also the easiest problems to prevent.

Safer water

• Boil drinking water and let it cool, or treat it with an approved water treatment product, if you are not sure it is safe.
• Store treated water in a clean, covered container, and take it out with a ladle or tap rather than dipping cups or hands into it.
• Keep latrines and animal waste well away from wells and water sources.

Handwashing that actually works

With soap and clean running water, for about twenty seconds, covering the backs of hands, between fingers and under nails. The moments that matter most are: after using the toilet, after cleaning a child, before preparing food, before eating, and before feeding a baby. Where soap is scarce, ash and water is better than water alone.

Diarrhoea

Diarrhoea kills through dehydration, not through the infection itself. Keep giving fluids: oral rehydration solution (ORS) is the treatment, given in small sips, frequently, after every loose stool. Children with diarrhoea should also receive zinc for 10 to 14 days, which shortens the illness. Keep breastfeeding throughout. Seek care if there is blood in the stool, persistent vomiting, high fever, signs of dehydration, or if it lasts more than a few days.

Nutrition and anaemia

Good nutrition is not about expensive food. It is about variety — getting protein, iron, and vitamins alongside the staple.

• Build meals around variety: a staple, plus a protein such as beans, groundnuts, fish, eggs or meat, plus vegetables or fruit.
• Dark green leafy vegetables, beans and groundnuts are affordable sources of iron. Eating them with something rich in vitamin C, such as citrus or tomato, helps the body absorb that iron.
• Orange and dark green foods — palm oil, mango, pawpaw, carrots, leafy greens — supply vitamin A, which protects eyesight and immunity.
• Reduce sugary drinks and heavily fried food, which add weight without nutrition.

Anaemia

Anaemia means too few healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen. It is common in Cameroon, particularly among pregnant women and young children, and is caused by iron deficiency, repeated malaria, worms and blood loss. Signs include tiredness and weakness, pale palms, inner eyelids and gums, breathlessness on light activity, dizziness and a fast heartbeat. It is easily tested for and usually treatable — but the underlying cause needs finding too.

Malnutrition in children

Warning signs include losing weight or failing to grow, very thin upper arms, swelling of the feet and lower legs, hair changing colour or texture, constant illness, and a child who is listless and uninterested in playing. Malnutrition is a medical condition, not simply a lack of food, and a child showing these signs should be assessed by a health worker.

When to seek care urgently

People often wait too long — because of distance, cost, or hoping it will pass. Some things must not wait.

• Difficulty breathing, or breathing that is very fast or noisy
• Chest pain, especially with sweating, nausea or pain spreading to the arm or jaw
• Sudden weakness or numbness on one side of the body, a drooping face, or sudden difficulty speaking — these are signs of stroke and every minute counts
• Convulsions, or loss of consciousness
• Confusion or unusual drowsiness in someone who is ill
• Heavy bleeding that does not stop
• Severe abdominal pain
• Any danger sign in pregnancy, in a newborn, or in a young child, as listed above
• A wound that is deep, dirty, or not healing — particularly in someone with diabetes