Mme Sera Badjie, wife of the Alkalo, Sohm village, The Gambia

After the sensitisation programme with the health personnel on the ground and within themselves also, they now follow all of the advice given to them. And that has led them to be malaria free. You no longer see a single malaria case in the community.

Since 3 years ago when we had the Self Assessment tool, up to now there has not been a single incidence of malaria since we have had the Self Assessment. No mother has died of malaria due to these interventions. Before the reason that we had a lot of deaths was that they did not recognise the symptoms in terms of malaria. Before the intervention, we used to have about 5 children dying each year as a result of malaria during the rainy season in this small village. At that time we were associating malaria with issues such as witchcraft. When your child has severe malaria, we would not think about going to the hospital, they would instead go to the marabou or the traditional healer and the child would die before they knew it was malaria.

But after the intervention we were able to recognise the signs and the symptons of severe malaria. When we saw any child having a fit, we knew that the child had malaria and we would rush the child to the nearest health facility. If we start with the village health worker and if he recognises it as severe malaria, he will refer them to the nearest Health Centre. And that has helped to reduce mortality.