Zakhiya: Recovering from severe malaria

Zakhiya stands blinking in the sunshine. She is painfully thin, small for her age and looks so fragile she might break. But 6 year old Zakhiya is a survivor. She was at St Luke’s Catholic Hospital, Southwest Shoa, Ethiopia, for 2 months with severe malnutrition and severe malaria. It was later found that she also had TB.

At St Luke Catholic Hospital, malaria is the third most common cause for admission. Many of these cases are children with severe malaria, like Zakhiya.

We must not forget that malaria is a poverty-related disease. The children in the area are malnourished and prone to falling prey to diseases like malaria. They urgently need more nourishment to give them strength, but they also need better malaria treatment. If children like Zakhiya could receive Coartem Dispersible® (Artemether Lumefantrine) or artesunate for injection they would recover sooner from malaria.