University of Tasmania, Australia

“Well … to repeat my voice, thanks a lot for the microscope you offered to our health centre. It was a special chance to us” Margaret Namukasa, Kyumba Health Centre 4.

ISSUE, in collaboration with medical students from South-West Uganda, have developed the Community Based Student Outreach Project (COBASOP), which is aimed at preventing and controlling malaria in rural regions of Southern Uganda. In these regions, with an estimated population of 857,000, the commonest cause of death and illness in children is malaria. 89% of people from these regions had a family member that developed malaria within the last six months. 91% of those who suffered from malaria were not sleeping under a treated mosquito net.

In Uganda alone, around 7000 people die from malaria each year and around half of these are children under the age of five. The saddest thing is that these deaths are completely unnecessary. Death from malaria is 100% preventable. It is all too easy to get trapped within the bubble of our worries, of our confined society, and forget about what's happening elsewhere. But these children are someone's daughter. They are someone's son. They are someone’s sister.

COBASOP aims to reduce the mortality from malaria by 90% in these regions by a four-pronged approach:

1. Malaria Education: This will be a multi-level approach with workshops aimed at local villagers, local leaders and health care workers.
2. Malaria Prevention Techniques: This includes the provision of insecticide-treated mosquito nets; home strategies to reduce mosquito breeding and various other methods.
3. Malaria Diagnosis: This includes the provision of appropriate equipment to accurately diagnose malaria reducing those who are misdiagnosed and hence use up valuable medication, as well as those who are missed completely.
4. Supply of Malaria Treatment: The aim is to fill the massive medicine gap which the government leaves at the peril of the locals.

The benefits of this project will also be felt here in Hobart as well. The project aims to promote a culture of student leadership and responsibility with regards to both local and global issues. The project will also help build a relationship between Hobart and Mbarara, Uganda, allowing for an exchange of perspectives healthy for the new age of internationalism.