Mission: Malaria
a short story about malaria for middle school students
Jilian stared out the airplane window at the expansive African landscape below. She was on a mission to help fight malaria, a deadly disease spread largely by female Anopheles mosquitoes. Jilian was a young assistant to a scientist working with the United Nations. She was traveling to sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria hit the hardest.
Jilian stared out the airplane window at the expansive African landscape below. She was on a mission to help fight malaria, a deadly disease spread by mosquitoes. Jilian was a young scientist working with the United Nations. She was traveling to sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria hit the hardest.
As the plane flew over Kenya, Jilian saw grasslands dotted with villages. She imagined families sleeping unprotected from hungry mosquitoes carrying the parasite. Her maps showed that in 2000, malaria infected over 200 million people in African countries. By 2015, increased bed net use had dropped infections by 40%. But malaria was still devastating here.
Jilian shivered as the plane descended into humid heat. She pictured the warmth fueling mosquito breeding and malaria's spread. At the UN laboratory, Jilian had studied how the malaria parasite evolved to infect red blood cells. Its complex lifecycle thrived in tropical environments like this.
Her first stop was Ghana. Jilian met Ama, a young girl whose brother Kofi had malaria. He was pale and shivering with severe chills from the disease. Jilian gave Kofi medicine to stop the parasite invasion. She provided the family with insecticide treated bed nets too. Ama smiled proudly as she hung the white nets over their beds.
Next Jilian visited Kenya. At a clinic in the mountains, she learned that malaria was less common at higher elevations. The lower air temperatures decreased mosquito and parasite survival. But climate change was allowing mosquitoes to move uphill. Jilian warned the doctors that rising temperatures could spread malaria to new altitudes.
Jilian's final stop was Zambia. At a rural hospital, many children had severe malaria infections. Jilian investigated and discovered the parasite had evolved resistance to common medicines. She worked urgently to provide new treatments. She also gave every family insecticide sprays and bed nets.
On her flight home, Jilian reflected on her malaria mission. She realized her maps and environmental data were critical to defeating the disease. By analyzing malaria patterns and spreading protection tools, she was helping save lives. Jilian felt proud that she could use science to make a difference. She dreamed of the day malaria would no longer threaten African communities.
Educational resource references:
APES: IIIB.3. Impacts of Population Growth: disease
APES: VIB.1. Hazards to Human Health: environmental risk analysis
NGSS HS-Life Science 4-4. Biological Evolution: Unity and Diversity; construct an expla- nation based on evidence for how natural selection leads to adaptation of populations.
Tags: geocomic malaria mosquito vector virus disease FK8