African Traditional Herbal Research Clinic ... - Blackherbals.com

African Traditional Herbal Research ClinicVolume 2, Issue 7 NEWSLETTER July/August 2007FEATURED ARTICLESHow Malaria Impoverishes UgandaUntil recently malaria was only known as the leadingkiller disease in Uganda and sub-Saharan Africa. Butstudies from the Ministry of Health indicate thedisease is also the leading cause of poverty.This is because it has serious impact on theeconomic, social and cultural aspects of society.A study carried out in 2002 in Uganda identified illhealth as the most frequent cause of poverty. Thestudy showed that a poor malaria-stricken familymight spend up to 25% of its income on malariatreatment and prevention. There are also direct costsin form of treatment, treatment seeking and funeralexpenses.IndustryMalaria leads to loss of household incomes throughabsenteeism from work. It is estimated that workerssuffering from a malaria bout can be incapacitated forfive to 20 days. A study showed that a highpercentage of employees were absent from work dueto malaria.In Apac district 54 per cent of workers cited malariaas the reason for absenteeism, in Kampala 33 per centand 50 per cent in Rukungiri. On the average out ofseven working days, between four to nine days werelost per malaria episode. This means that recoverywould take longer than a week in some workers.During such a period some companies pay forworkers’ treatment while the employees are notproductive at the moment. Company production isaffected leading to lower profit levels and highercosts of production. And this occurs several times ayear in many families. This affects the nationalbudgets because the lower the output, the lower thetaxes paid to the government. As such, thegovernment cannot meet the obligation of providingservices such as in health, thus creating a viciouscycle of poverty.Apart from direct effects of malaria to industries isJane NafulaDaily MonitorMay 9, 2007the additional low demand level. A sick and perenniallypoor population has low consumption levels. Because oflow household incomes, such a population can hardlyafford basic necessities in life. This makes it difficult forsuch a country to attract investment because of the smallmarket available. The opportunities that go withinvestment (jobs, taxes, social infrastructure and a higherstandard of living) are lost.In industry and agricultural enterprises like tea,sugarcane, coffee, rice, tobacco estates, malaria accountsfor the greatest number of man-hours lost, which maybeup to or more than 50% of all the man-hours lost. Thisaffects production and revenue for the industry, familiesand the nation as well.Malaria also leads to loss of investment funds thusaffecting the economy. It is known that investors are notmuch interested in investing in countries where most oftheir profits will be eroded through absenteeism fromwork due to malaria an on treatment of malaria infectedworkforce.Agriculture, EducationThis means there are high chances that children in suchfamilies will not be able to attend school. This affectsperformance. It is estimated that in endemic areas likeUganda, malaria may impair as much as 60% of theschoolchildren’s learning ability.Children from such families will perform poorly, go topoor schools and have fewer or no opportunities to highereducation. This makes them miss out on goodemployment opportunities and they end up doing lowskilled labour intensive jobs.In case the dead person is the breadwinner for the family,children will automatically drop out of school and arecondemned to living a wretched life.In agriculture, the period parents (mostly mothers) spendnursing sick children is lost whereas it could be used togrow crops for food and income.Continued on page 9-8- Traditional African Clinic July/August 2007