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Blogging from Bolivia
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
By: Michael Nyenhuis
Chase the Bugs Away
Want to beat a Neglected
Tropical Disease? I found the recipe for success in combating one of
them today after walking up a steep mountainside to a small
neighborhood occupied by 14 families who lack electricity and earn a
living growing potatoes and a few other vegetables.
For years these families
have faced the threat of Chagas disease, which over time will cause
heart failure and other health programs. Chagas is one of the 14
tropical diseases officially designated as neglected by the World
Health Organization. The infection is transmitted by an insect, the
Vinchuca bug.
Not long ago Damiana
Nina’s children – she has seven of them age 5 to 20 – would frequently
wake up in the morning with Vinchuca bugs crawling on their skin. That
is dangerous.
Now, she said as I
talked to her in her potato field where she was harvesting, the bugs
are gone. No more threat from the Vinchuca. What happened?
MAP International began
a project to combat Chagas through a combination of education and
training for parents and their children and about $270 worth of
construction materials for each of 112 houses targeted in a recent
project, including Daminan’s house and those of her neighbors.
You beat Chagas by:
- Sensitizing families to the threat and what they can do about it,
- Help the families remodel their small, rural houses with plastered walls and concrete floors.
The
sneaky Vinchuca hides in cracks found in, and between, the adobe mud
bricks used to build the walls of most of the rural homes here in
Bolivia. At night they come out from their hiding places and look for a
human to bite. The infection can be passed on when the bug bites. Do
away with the cracks in the bricks and the bugs have not place to hang
out, so they leave. That’s where the plaster and concrete come in.
With
its smooth plastered walls and ceilings and concrete floor, Damiana’s
house is now Vinchuca free – and it also is so much nicer to live in,
she said.
Her husband, Celestino, had this to say: “We are so thankful to MAP for the project.”
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