Defeating Malaria in Myanmar's Remote Villages

Naw Poe lives with her husband and two-year-old son in Hsar Pwel Htar, a remote village in Myanmar’s Tanintharyi Region in the country’s southeast. The village has no health clinic. The nearest one is about two hours drive by motorbike across rugged terrain. During the monsoon season, the dirt tracks that connect villages are often impassable.

The family’s combined income averages around $75 per month. This is just enough to cover day-to-day essentials, but when a family member gets sick, they face potentially catastrophic health costs. “The nearest clinic is far away, and it is expensive for us to go there,” explains Naw Poe. “We have to pay for transportation, food, medicine and accommodation. That is too much for our family, so we have to go into debt. It is difficult to borrow money from other families in the village because no one has much here.”

Hsar Pwel Htar village is one of the hundreds in which CPI supports a Malaria Post staffed by a community-based health worker trained in essential malaria prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. This approach is vital to CPI’s model of investing in community-based health care, particularly in remote and conflict-affected regions where communities have little or no access to other health care services.

In mid-2016, Naw Poe fell ill with a fever, chills, and severe headache. Aware that the health worker at the Malaria Post offered free malaria treatment, she went to see her immediately.
“She tested my blood and told me that I had malaria,” Naw Poe explains. “She gave me some pills to take, white and brown, and told me to come back immediately if I felt any discomfort. About one week after taking the medicine, I felt much better.”

“She also explained how you catch malaria and reminded me to ensure the family sleeps under the bed net every night so the mosquitoes can’t bite us. We will be more careful in the future.”

“I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been there,” Naw Poe explains. “It was the rainy season, so the track to the nearest clinic was in bad condition, and I probably couldn’t make it. I could have died.”

For Naw Poe, the new Malaria Post has made a difference. “I used to worry a lot about malaria for my family and myself. It is better now – we can get advice and free treatment to help us stay healthy. Having more health services like this in our village would be good. I hope things will continue to get better in the future. That way, when we get sick, we won’t need to travel long distances and spend much money to get treatment.”

Naw Poe is one of 2,360 people who tested positive for malaria and received treatment through CPI’s malaria elimination program in 2016.