DR CONGO / MALARIA

A UNICEF campaign is underway to distribute 15 million nets nationwide by the end of the year in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Malaria kills nearly two hundred thousand children in the DRC every year.

















UNICEF

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:01:44
• Production Date: 7 December 2010
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND - UNICEF
• Subject Topical: HEALTH; DISEASE PREVENTION; DISEASE CONTROL; DISEASES
• Geographic Subject: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
• MAMS Id: U101207g

Description

STORY: DR CONGO / MALARIA
TRT: 1.44
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: FRENCH/ KIKIONGO/ NATS

DATELINE: 28 OCTOBER 2010, DJUMA BANDUNDU PROVINCE, DR CONGO

Shotlist

1. Wide shot, people in line at distribution point outside Djuma hospital
2. Close up, nurses handing nets
3. Close up, net case opened
4. Wide shot, net being handed over
5. Med shot, Leontine Nganiema in the queue
6. SOUNDBITE (French) Mireille Mbamvu, Nurse:
“We give nets according to the size of the household and to this woman we gave four nets because there are nine people living in her house.”
7. Med shot, Leontine breastfeeds at her house
8. Close up, child breastfeeding
9. SOUNDBITE (Kikongo) Leontine Nganiema, Mother:
“My children had malaria and we didn’t know how to protect them. It was awful. All the time we were going to the clinic for medicine. They kept vomiting and getting dehydrated. Every two months they would get sick like this.”
10. Close up, mosquito nets being loaded on to truck
11. Close up, nets being pushed on trucks
12. Med shot, from above, nets on vehicle
13. Close up, nets being loaded
14. SOUNDBITE (French) Jean Boscoe Hulute, UNICEF DRC:
“When people use impregnated mosquito nets there is a reduction in the levels of mortality. It reduces the number of malaria cases in families that use them. In provinces where we have distributed nets and where 45 percent of nets are using them we’ve seen a reduction in malaria cases in children under five.”
15. Various shot, demonstration of mosquito nets in Djuma town
16. Med shot, crowd

Storyline

Hundreds of Congolese women are queuing up to arm their families with mosquito nets, the best known form of self defence against Africa’s biggest killer, malaria.

It’s a small part of one the biggest interventions against the disease the continent has ever seen.

SOUNDBITE (French) Mireille Mbamvu, Nurse:
“We give nets according to the size of the household and to this woman we gave four nets because there are nine people living in her house.”

Leontine Nganiema’s family is one more household in a campaign to distribute 15 million nets nationwide by the end of the year.

Malaria kills nearly two hundred thousand children in the Democratic Republic of Congo every year. And like many families here Leontine’s four children have all been badly affected.

SOUNDBITE (Kikongo) Leontine Nganiema, Mother:
“My children had malaria and we didn’t know how to protect them. It was awful. All the time we were going to the clinic for medicine. They kept vomiting and getting dehydrated. Every two months they would get sick like this.”

Getting the nets to remote Congolese communities is a huge logistical operation. Packages of nets are shipped – trucked and carried – before being handed out by local health workers. For those who work on the project there’s a total conviction that this is an intervention that works and saves lives.

SOUNDBITE (French) Jean Boscoe Hulute, UNICEF DRC:
“When people use impregnated mosquito nets there is a reduction in the levels of mortality. It reduces the number of malaria cases in families that use them. In provinces where we have distributed nets and where 45 percent of nets are using them we’ve seen a reduction in malaria cases in children under five”

At health centres and public demonstrations like this the message is now being spread. In a country brought to its knees by conflict and corruption the struggle against malaria is one war that can be won.