The following was written by Alex Perry and published in Time Magazine (June 21, 2010):
“To reach the most malarial town on earth, head north from Kampala (Uganda) across the Victoria Nile and, just before you come to the refugee camps that mark the southern edge of Uganda’s 20-year civil war, turn east to Lake Kwania. Africa’s other Great Lakes are known for freshwater beaches and cool evenings, but Kwania is more of a giant swamp: shallow, full of crocodiles and choked with lily, papyrus and hyacinth. The malaria parasite loves it here.
Kwania’s creeks, looking like a million silver fish bones from the air, are perfect for a deadly subspecies of mosquito, Anopheles funestus, which feeds almost exclusively on humans. The nearby town of Apac is packed with a living blood bank of people. . . .
Driving into Apac late on an August day last year, I saw a naked man limbering toward me. Tall and thin, he was gray with dust, and his hair bristled with twigs and grass. He was talking to someone only he could see. Edging past, I was surprised by a second naken figure lurching out of a side street. He had the same cracked skin stretched over the same slender frame. Ahead, a third naked figure sat by the side of the road, his ead in his hands. I felt as if I’d arrived in a town of zombies.
Apac’s empty streets reinforced that impression. The town seemed to exist only for sickness and death: on one road I counted 12 medical centers, 10 drugstores and a crumbling, windowless nursing school. Soon I found a building that belonged to the Ministry of Health. I pulled, entered and followed a dark corridor to a door marked “District Health Officer.” I knocked. Behind two sets of fly screens and un a ceiling fan, Dr. Matthew Emer sat at his desk. I explained I was following a new campaign to rid the world of malaria and was in Apac to see what it was up against. “Brain damage,” Dr. Matthew replied. “Severe malaria can do that to a baby. You never recover.”
