Preventing Hookworm
While We Take Cement For Granted, It Can Mean Life or Death To Others
Ken Godevenos
There's a fascinating article in the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of FP (Foreign Policy) Magazine by Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and the author of a must-read book for anyone involved in helping others in the 3rd World, Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding and How We Can Improve the World Even More.Kenny writes in FP:
"Consider what it's like to live in a mud-floor house, as nearly 80 percent of rural Kenyans, and hundreds of millions of people worldwide, do. It is effectively impossible to clean such floors, which is a big reason that more than half a billion people worldwide are infected with hookworm, according to scientist Peter Hotez of the Sabin Vaccine Institute. Walking barefoot on soil floors is one of the most common ways to get hookworm disease -- a parasitic infection in which larvae burrow through skin, lodging in the gastrointestinal tract, living off the host, and making children very sick. Kids with hookworm are less likely to go to school and become healthy adults. The economic impact can be considerable: University of Chicago economist Hoyt Bleakley estimates that children infected with hookworm in the American South in the early 1900s went on to earn 43 percent less in wages as adults."He continues,
"There are cheap ways to combat such nasty diseases. A package of drugs covering hookworm and a range of parasitic infections costs as little as 50 cents per person per year. Reinfection, however, is frequent, and improper use of the medicine can create drug-resistant strains. What works best? Not drugs, but pavement; it typically costs just a few dollars per cubic foot and can last a lifetime."Amazing. Cement pavement floors. What a novel idea. Now, you've heard it from the experts. And that's exactly the idea that ICC teams have been working on as they visit Kenya -- seeing to it that classrooms in the schools we work with get their dusty red dirt floors transformed into "cement floors" that last a long time and while they're at school at least, any where from 20 to 30 children a day can benefit from them -- breathing easier and cutting down the likelihood of being infected with hookworm. Our donors have been a big part of making that possible.
Elsewhere in this Newsletter are some pictures of the classroom floors we paved on our recent trip. There are many more floors, and many more needs when it comes to the education opportunities of Kenyan children. You can help by contributing to either or "3rd World General Fund" or our "Education Fund". Who would have thought that a little concrete can go a long way toward cementing a better life for so many.
-- Ken Godevenos, ICC Director, on behalf of entire Board.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of ICC International.
The Editor
