C-Change and PMI Assist Communities in Western Kenya in Efforts to Prevent Malaria

Myths and misconceptions about the causes of malaria kept pregnant women from seeking malaria treatment in western Kenya. And many women doubted that community health workers (CHWs) and health clinics could help them to prevent malaria.

One such doubter was Seline Auma Opiyo, a mother from Khumalaya village. “I would ask for medicine from the neighbors and administer it blindly, not really knowing what I was doing,” explains Opiyo, sitting in the one-room, mud-walled house she shares with her husband and three children. She gratefully points to Regina Ombita, the CHW who encouraged her to visit the health facility.

Ombita recalled how difficult that task was--a challenge that many CHWs face. “Seline was absolutely unyielding. It was more than not liking hospitals; she was influenced by traditional beliefs that say revealing a pregnancy early on [by visiting an antenatal clinic] would expose her and her fetus to witchcraft. Such are the myths doing the rounds here,” Ombita says. “I found her seven months pregnant... Read more