Malaria

Not a great week.

Not a great way to start a mission.

We had a missionary who contracted malaria on the second of July in Nigeria (Calabar mission). He was started on oral medication, but still no improvement. Subsequently, had to send him to the hospital where he has been treated with IV antimalarial medications and IV fluids. All seemed pretty routine until this morning. I received a call early Wednesday morning in regards to his death. Subsequently spent the morning interviewing the attending physician and mission president in Nigeria, then, frantically putting together a medical report to be used for reports for the brethren in Salt Lake. After two conference calls with Salt Lake, and call with our general authority regarding details of autopsy etc., and finally the calls and “pressure” abated. A very frustrating morning.

The stake president from Accra subsequently called and asked that we join him in a meeting with the family (as Elder Nkrumah is a native of Accra). None of the family are members. They are prominent members of the community. We were nervous. Prayers were said, and things went very smooth.

My faith has been strengthened by his family. Of course it was a very emotional meeting. His uncles (the family elders), upon hearing the news, and after reviewing the medical details made the following comments:

                “We are SO proud of George, he died as a soldier for the cross”

               “I hope that I have the opportunity to die in such an honorable way”

His family has been in our prayers.

Spent the rest of the week basically in the office, finishing up details. Preparing for our first mission health visit to Western Ghana (Cape Coast)

I remain frustrated with malaria, and with the malaria rates in this Africa West area. It is totally unacceptable. We have the mechanism in place to keep our missionaries from malaria—two simple things are required. First, take your medications (most are on doxycycline). Second, sleep under your mosquito nets. In most of our missions, the compliance rate is around 30%. I made the following poster—I “doctored” an old photo from a world war II army medical base (they were then using atabrine, before doxycycline).

This photo is now pasted to the door of our office

Our best mission (Sierra Leonne) went from having 12-14 cases of malaria a month (80-100 missionaries) to now have 0-1 cases each month since the arrival of the current mission president last July who insists on doxy and nets. This month we have 6 new mission presidents in our area, and all have been very receptive and willing to make this a priority.

Things MUST improve.

We are on a crusade.