Bekusike, who works as an officer in charge of clinical services at International Medical Corp’s office in the Pader district town of Pajule, has weighed into the battle against malaria by using an unusual tool to spread the word about its dangers: drama. Worried that residents of the region’s camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) would absorb little of one more boring lecture on disease prevention, he decided to shake things up.
He made a deal with two local drama groups to perform a play for camp residents about malaria’s dangers. The actors received International Medical Corps caps in exchange for their work. The production was such a success that Bekusike’s main concern swung quickly from getting people to come to how best to handle audience overflow .
“At times the crowds were so big it became a problem,” he said. “Everyone seemed to like it.”
Although the play was entertaining, the message it carried was deadly serious.
The Ugandan government estimates malaria kills between 70,000 and 110,000 people each year and accounts for about half of all patients who visit the country’s health facilities each year.
Because of this, International Medical Corps integrates measures to counter malaria into all the programs it administers in Kitgum and Padar districts. It devotes special efforts to training Ugandan staff employed by the local government-run health clinics on how to recognize and treat those who come to the clinics with malaria.
But International Medical Corps also works hard on prevention measures, such as distributing mosquito nets, urging families to rid the immediate area around the home of the stagnant water malaria-carrying mosquitoes use to breed and spreading the word about the special dangers malaria poses to children under five years of age, whose young bodies have developed little or no immunity to the disease.
But getting the attention of those in northern Uganda’s camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) long enough to teach them of the dangers has been a constant challenge.
That’s where Bekusike’s play came in. The production features a typical family of four, who have just received a mosquito net from a humanitarian aid group, along with instructions for how to use it and a warning to get rid of a nearby broken plastic container half filled with water. As the play unfolds, the parents decide to use the protective netting themselves, and leave their two small children to sleep unprotected nearby. When both little ones contract malaria, the worried parents rush them to a local witch doctor, whose rites prove useless for one of the children. The child dies before the disconsolate mother and father.
As the emotional scene progresses, an International Medical Corps doctor appears to tell the parents –and the audience—the importance of bringing the children under the net, of taking other preventive measures such as removing standing water and, if the disease does strike, to seek advice from trained medical teams at a local clinic, not from a witch doctor.
“People are getting the message,” said Bekusike. He’s already working on a sequel to his first hit.