How covid-19 hinders the fight against malaria

SINCE COVID-19 hit Kenya, Margaret Wanja has accumulated six grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She lives in Thiba, a rice-growing village. Her new brood are all evacuees from Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. Many city-dwellers believe it is safer to send their children to rural relatives. Others hope to save money. The pandemic has destroyed jobs and closed schools, where poor children are often given a free lunch. Dispatching kids to the countryside, where it is easier to live off the land, means fewer mouths to feed.Yet there are hidden dangers. The irrigation ditches in Thiba’s paddy fields breed mosquitoes, which transmit malarial parasites from human bloodstream to human bloodstream. So even if there is less coronavirus here than in a city, it is far more dangerous for children. Worldwide, 400,000 people died of malaria in 2018, two-thirds of them children under five. Very few children die of covid-19.