Health Action Days are a very effective way
of improving a community’s health status especially in an area where more then
70% of people live below the poverty line. Health Action Days target the
vulnerable groups in a community and provide specific interventions which have a
long term impact. The vulnerable groups are women and children under five.
Bilal Muslim Mission
of Kenya in conjunction with the Ministry of Health organized two
Mother and Child Health camps / Health Action Days on September 29th
and November 2nd 20002, ( four weeks apart) in three sites:-
Burani and Miamba in Kwale District and Bangladesh in Mombasa. These three areas
were identified by the Ministry of Health as areas which needed special
attention due to several reasons:
· Kwale District has one of the highest infant mortality rate ( children dying before they are one year old) in the country.
· More than 67% of people in the area live below the poverty line
· Poor Access to health services.
·
Bangladesh is a sprawling slum area in Mombasa- it is called
Bangladesh because of its high population and because of frequent outbreaks of
cholera.
The activities we undertook were aimed at
improving the quality of health in these areas. Our activities are different
from the general “medical” camps organized by other organizations since we
believe in investing in interventions which have proved to be cost effective and
have a greater impact in the long run. The concentration on prevention is
fundamental to achieve the long term goal of improved health. In the Mother and Child camp we concentrate on providing services to women
and children since they bear the brunt of all diseases. We undertook these
activities after consultation with the Ministry of Health.
The specific interventions, which have
positive long term implication in health, chosen were :
1.
Immunization of children.
2.
Vitamin A supplementation.
3.
Growth monitoring and giving food supplements to those children who
were underweight
4.
Mass deworming for
intestinal parasites.
5.
Treatment of common endemic diseases such as bilharzia
6.
Giving ante-natal care to pregnant mothers ( this included giving iron
tablets, folic acid, anti-malaria
prophylaxis)
7.
Giving health education talks.
8.
Family planning services
An area which the Mission incorporated in
its activities this time was Chlorinating water supply wells and Malaria control
in Bangladesh, Mombasa. This was done since cholera and malaria is a major cause
of death. Frequent outbreaks of cholera is due to poor sanitation and
contaminated water supply.
Staff from Ministry of Health and Doctors
from the Mombasa Jamat- Dr ZakirHusein Dhanji, Dr Mahmood Jaffer, Dr Murtaza
Rashid, and Dr Imran Gulamhusein- together with our
youths were in attendance.The co-operation extended by the
Provincial Medical Officer Dr Shahnaz K. Shariff is acknowledged.
The number of people attended is as per
below data:
Impact:
· Diseases such as polio, diphtheria, pertrusis, hepatitis, tetanus, H. influenza and measles are prevented by vaccination in childhood. A total of 252 children were immunized with various antigens. Thus 252 children will be protected for the rest of their lives against these diseases.
· Many women deliver at home and do not have clean and sanitary places to deliver and thus the baby delivered at home gets tetanus within a few days of birth. Tetanus in the newborn is invariably fatal and almost all die. 196 pregnant women were given tetanus toxoid injection. In this case we have ensured that the 196 women whom we attended will deliver babies who will not get tetanus. All pregnant women were assessed and given appropriate medications and advised on safe delivery.
· 179 houses were sprayed with a residual non toxic insecticide. Thus 1094 people are protected from getting malaria in the next six months. Malaria is a major cause of death. The Bathrooms and Pit latrines ( 159 ) were sprayed too. We also poured mosquito oil (HS oil) in stagnant pools (137 areas) to prevent mosquito breeding.
· Malnutrition and anemia due to intestinal worms is common. 1021 children were de-wormed. These measures in the long term reduce children becoming underweight and reduce stunting. Stunting in early childhood leads to long term complication such as reduction in learning ability, increased risk of infections them from deteriorating in their nutritional status.
· Over 2000 women and children were also treated for diseases such as malaria and worms. It is interesting to note that the number of patients with bilharzia was less the last year. This may be due to the fact that last year we had carried out an intensive mass drug treatment in the two areas in Kwale against bilharzias.
· More than 650 children, attended the child clinic, where they were weighed, immunization status checked,de-wormed and treated for common but potentially fatal diseases such as malaria. Children who had obvious signs of malnutrition were given “ wimbi” as a supplement to improve their status We treated 911 sick children and mothers.
The long term impact of this project will
be tremendous as the most basic preventive aspects in Health Care was addressed.
We intend to undertake Health Action days
programmes on regular basis.
For more information contact:
Bilal
Muslim Mission of Kenya
e-mail: tableegh@kenbilal.org
