Malaria sucks, and solving it is more than a Biology challenge, it's a people challenge.
Last year I spent a few weeks volunteering at a health clinic in rural Ghana. People walked in with various ailments and issues. To them, it's simply easier and more cost effective to treat everyone as if they have malaria then to spend the time diagnosing the real issue. The results of this being that practically everyone walked out with malaria medication.
This is simply one facet in a complicated issue, but it's a big one. The people issues require crossing cultural and logistical barriers and are just as difficult to solve as the scientific ones.
Could you answer a question for me? When I went to Ghana, I noticed it had far more volunteers (especially from the US) than any other country I've ever been to. Do you know why this is?
Although most nationals can speak 2-3 languages very well, owing to the many local dialects. English may be the language of business but the outlying villages often speak different languages. In general though, yes I think it tends to be a more stable country than some in Africa. There is even an American-style burger joint in Accra.
I did an internship in Lagos, Nigeria and during this time a lot of folks from Ghana came to work there. They were the most friendly, open-minded and welcoming people I met during this time. Now that Nigeria is no longer a safe place to be, a lot of expats (mostly working for oil and construction companies) moved their families to Ghana . I doesn't matter from where they fly out to the oil rigs.
What area of Ghana? I was there myself a couple years ago with a documentary crew. Traveled through Accra and across the Volta region. How did you find the country? In my experience the people are wonderful.
All in the Ashanti region, about an hour north of Kumasi. Ghana was an incredible place - I also found the people wonderful. Very inviting and very friendly. All the older non-english speaking women would laugh and forgive me when I butchered their Twi names.
I had a terrible time with names, and I felt very uneducated when I realized that nearly everyone was fluent in several languages.
Oddly enough one of the most astounding things that happened when I was there was when one of the nationals with no formal training fixed an electronic piece of our camera gear with makeshift tools. That still is number one on my list of coolest hacks.
Last year I spent a few weeks volunteering at a health clinic in rural Ghana. People walked in with various ailments and issues. To them, it's simply easier and more cost effective to treat everyone as if they have malaria then to spend the time diagnosing the real issue. The results of this being that practically everyone walked out with malaria medication.
This is simply one facet in a complicated issue, but it's a big one. The people issues require crossing cultural and logistical barriers and are just as difficult to solve as the scientific ones.