Kenya

Background

Kenya is situated in east Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.  Bisected by the Great Rift Valley, the country has a varied climate and terrain, with a semi-arid north, mountainous central highlands, a tropical coastline and fertile plains to the west. This geoclimatic profile lends itself to a diverse malaria profile and complex malaria control operations, where a “one solution” fits is unsuitable for the country.

Kenya struggles to reduce the number of malaria infections in endemic districts in the west of the country where children are greatly burdened by disease, but those surviving to adulthood acquire partial immunity. This is in contrast to the epidemic prone areas of the highland districts and the arid / semi-arid north east districts where establishing early warning systems and epidemic preparedness plans are essential to control the impact of malaria.

In these epidemic areas the entire population lacks immunity and during times of malaria transmission will suffer the greatest number of malaria cases and deaths. Such grave situations have been seen repeatedly in North Eastern Province during large scale flooding in the El Nino years of 1997/1998 and 2006/2007. Her the most deadly form of the malaria parasite Plasmodium Falciparum is predominant and effective malaria vectors – mosquitoes -  Anopheles Arabienses are abundant in varying proportions when flood waters recede.