For young Rabi, a bout with malaria led to serious, life-threatening malnutrition. Through a new initiative, World Vision is taking action to end this deadly disease and reduce the number of malaria-related deaths.

March 2009

By Jessie Lester, World Vision U.S., and Andrea Peer, World Vision U.S.

Before she caught malaria, Rabi was an active, healthy toddler. For seven months, she was strong enough to leave her mother’s back and walk on her own. Now, at 2 years old, she weighs only 11.9 pounds — the weight of an average 3-month-old — and doesn’t have the energy to walk. Her body is thin and frail, and a full set of teeth protrude from her boney face.

Attacked by malaria

“She started having a fever, morning, noon, and night. Then, we saw her eyes turn yellow,” says Rabi’s 28-year-old mother. Rabi’s symptoms were typical of a child infected with malaria, a silent disease that begins with a small mosquito bite.

If not properly treated, malaria can be deadly. Thankfully, Rabi was able to get medical attention, and she soon recovered from the fever. But the frightening side effects brought by the disease were far from over. Malaria and other health threats, including hunger, malnutrition, and HIV, often work hand in hand.

More than 2,000 children die each day from malaria. According to the World Food Program, 57 percent of malaria deaths are attributable to under-nutrition. In many high-risk countries, where the chance of contracting malaria is acute, severe food shortages and global price increases are compounding the situation. In Niger, where Rabi lives, a 40-percent malnutrition rate has made malaria all the more threatening.

Afflicted with malnutrition

Children who are undernourished don’t have the strength to fight the disease. And for children like Rabi, who were once healthy, malaria can lead to malnourishment. While she was feverish, Rabi lost her appetite and became anemic. Though she overcame the disease, her strength did not return. Whether for lack of food or lack of appetite, Rabi kept getting thinner and thinner.

In desperation, Rabi’s father took her to the local World Vision clinic for malnourished children. “I brought my child here because I want the staff to help her until she’s in good health,” he said. As he held her, Rabi whimpered constantly.

The road to recovery

At the World Vision clinic, Rabi received rehydration solution, and her parents were given packets of plumpy’nut, a fast-acting, high-protein solution to malnutrition that greatly speeds recovery for children like Rabi. When Rabi was offered her first bites, she ate eagerly. “Look at her, she’s eating it,” said her mother.

Rabi is still on the road to recovery, but World Vision staff members are continuing to monitor her health and are confident that she will soon be healthy and active once again. Many other children in her poor condition have made complete recoveries.

World Vision is committed to monitoring child nutrition and providing therapeutic care and nutritional supplements, such as plumpy’nut, to malnourished children like Rabi. We also work in communities to address food shortages and develop long-term, sustainable solutions to the problem of malnutrition.

Preventing malaria-related deaths

Yet if Rabi had never contracted malaria, malnutrition may not have been an issue. Tragically, this preventable and treatable disease still claims lives in parts of the world where poverty renders simple interventions — such as bed nets and anti-malarial drugs — inaccessible or unaffordable. But we do not have to wait for children like Rabi to contract malaria and place themselves at risk of other diseases before we take action.

In June 2008, World Vision launched a major five-year initiative to significantly reduce the illness and death caused by malaria. World Vision is committed to raising increased resources — public and private — to overcome this tragedy. This initiative includes community education, anti-malarial drug provision, and extensive distribution of bed nets, which keep deadly mosquitoes away from children. World Vision is also working to ensure that the U.S. government fulfills its commitment to provide at least $1 billion a year to combat global malaria, as pledged in the Global AIDS TB and Malaria Bill, and is advocating for improved coordination within the international community.


“With proven, inexpensive solutions, such as treated mosquito nets, malaria programs not only protect against the fourth leading cause of child death worldwide, but also represent one of the best returns on investment in a time when every dollar counts,” says Craig Jaggers, World Vision’s health and education policy adviser. "Fulfilling the U.S. commitment to provide at least $1 billion a year for malaria activities will help ensure millions of young lives will be spared.”

Small actions can mean big change for children like Rabi. By reducing the number of malaria infections, seemingly simple interventions also help to prevent other illnesses, such as malnutrition. In sub-Saharan Africa, where Rabi lives, insecticide-treated bed nets could potentially prevent 1 million child deaths.