flying to Pemba

Since my internship starts tomorrow, we are flying to Pemba this afternoon. Juma's overjoyed to fly on another prop plane; as for me, I'm a bit nervous to start my work.

My internship is a "Qualitative Evaluation of Intermittent Presumptive Treatment (IPT) for Malaria and Anemia in Pregnant Women."

Um, yeah.

No, really, I do know what that means. Pregnant women are at high risk of malaria, and it often leads to low birth weight in their babies. Anemia is a further complication of both pregnancy and malaria, so pregnant women and their babies get a double-whammy. Everyone gets malaria, and 80% of pregnant women are anemic in Pemba, so this is a high-risk population. The IPT consists of single-dose treatments for malaria along with iron and folic acid supplements, taken (hopefully) at least twice during pregnancy. Studies show that this kind of treatment, giving women malaria treatment on the assumption that they have malaria, works better than only treating diagnosed cases. And by "works better" I mean fewer maternal and infant deaths and better birth weight for the babies. Always a good thing.

So these drugs have been delivered to women over the past while, and I, along with a student from Cornell, will interview health care workers and pregnant women about the program. Do they take the drugs? Why or why not? Are the drugs available, acceptable? Are there side effects? etc. Then we'll write a report for the government which will hopefully work toward improving the program.

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I'll try to put some pictures up, but these computers are slooooowww.