 Treated mosquito nets save lives. Photo: Stewart Allen |
 Mentawai children dress up as mosquitoes in SurfAid’s malaria play. Photo: Bob Barker |
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| Reducing malaria infection rates in the Mentawai was our first campaign 10 years ago and remains one of our most effective. Through your support, we’ve reached more than 300 communities with innovative educational programs and specially-treated mosquito nets. But the nets are due to be replaced as their useful lives wear out. Over the next 12 months, we need to supply 30,000 nets to cover our target villages in the Mentawai. It costs $10 to purchase one new net and $3 to deliver it to a family. |
The plan for each village is to distribute the nets, test all children under 9 for the malaria parasite and provide re-education of the significance of malaria in terms of health and economic development. We also need to ensure communities understand the particular significance of malaria prevention in pregnant women and children under five. The new nets will create a protective “insecticide halo” around villages that assists to disrupt the parasite cycle of infection and re-infection. |
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 The goal of SurfAid’s Malaria Program is to significantly reduce the prevalence and incidence of malaria through education and training. While the focus has been on the Mentawai Islands since 2001, SurfAid has also worked as far north as Aceh's Simeulue Island, and on the island of Nias. We have distributed more than 60,000 insecticide-treated nets and provided malaria education to over 300 villages in some of the remotest areas of the world, stretching along hundreds of kilometres of rough seas off the coasts of Sumatra and Aceh. |
