WAKISO, Uganda
Atsa Namuy Omba, a mother of three, can now sleep at night knowing that her re-treated mosquito nets are protecting her children.
“Before we bought the nets, my kids were getting malaria every two months,” said Omba, who lives in Wakiso district about five miles from Uganda’s capital Kampala. “Since we began to use the nets, my 2-year-old son has only been infected once in a year.” The family’s bed nets were retreated as part of the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). The effort spent to re-treat 600,000 nets with insecticide for about 1 million Ugandans.
Before they had mosquito nets, the family was constantly at the hospital with sick children, draining their financial resources. They earn a living by selling milk from their cows and the vegetables they grow. “One time we lost one of our cows because he was strangled by a rope as there was no one to take care of the animals,” Omba said.
Health workers at the hospital near her home told Omba about the bed nets and advised her to buy them for her family. She spoke about it with her husband Mustafa Luvega, who went to the local market to buy two nets for about $4 each.