Malaria is a quite deadly disease in the Sudan. One can see then why this stamp expresses the hope that the World Health Organization’s new effort to eradicate the disease will be a great benefit. Now it is my job to figure out how that worked out. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Has we moved into the 1960s, this stamp shows how much hope there was among the newly independent countries. The international bodies were untarnished by colonial grievances but able to direct expertise and resources of the advanced countries into the poor ones in a non threatening way. Unfortunately this period is over with stamps. Now the UN features an individual from the poor land as a symbol of equality and coping with challenges and forgets to even pretend to fix the problems of a place like Sudan.
Todays stamp is issue A23, a 15 millimes stamp issued by independent Sudan on April 7th, 1962. It was a two stamp issue in different denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.
90 percent of malaria cases in the Sudan begin with nighttime bites from the female Anopheles mosquito. From the bite, a single celled parasite named plasmodium falciparum is implanted that leads to malaria. Over 40,000 malaria deaths a year plague Sudan, with children and pregnant women hardest hit. This is actually worse that the situation in 1962.
This is a strange thing because the WHO efforts to eradicate malaria in the Sudan were largely successful in period. The USA and Japan funded the program that aggressively sprayed insecticides especially along the Nile River so there would be less transmission of the parasite.
Around 1990 there was reorganization that ended the spraying in exchange for a different program that sought to strengthen Sudan’s health infrastructure to lower the death rate among those bitten by the bug. Sudan itself pleaded for the spraying to continue pointing to provinces where spraying had virtually eradicated malaria transmission. The malaria death rate in the Sudan shot to new highs never seen before though Sudan by then was a much more populous country.
In 1998, Sudan itself started a new roll back malaria program hoping to eradicate malaria by 2010. By then the Sudanese health infrastructure tried to use the deaths to justify more health spending from the government. The program had 60% goals on a veriety of fronts. That 60 percent of new transmissions would be in treatment within 8 hours of symptoms. That 60 percent of pregnant women and children under 5 would receive intermittent preventive treatment and be under insecticide spayed bug nets. There would also be a surveillance system nationally to spot severe local outbreaks that would trigger spraying. One can see how this was a formula to spend a large amount of money. It is not so clear how this was an eradication rather than dealing with it strategy. Naturally it failed. Those that promoted the program blame inconsistent government funding and malaria drug treatment switching to more expensive drugs. Meanwhile 40,000 a year continue to die.
Well my drink is empty. It is hard to blame Sudan for their malaria situation. Somewhere along the line, our experts lost there expertise and were only comfortable doing certain things. If Sudan pays the price, so be it. Come again next Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.