Anemia hits African children

In his doctoral thesis, Charles Obonyo states that anemia caused by malaria is one of the most important causes of illness and death among African children under the age of five.

In areas where there is malaria, around 80 percent of the children suffer from anemia. One complication in this regard is that although blood transfusions are the best way to treat anemia, those receiving them are at high risk of contracting HIV. Fighting malaria is extremely important, but treating malaria is made much more difficult because of the resistance of the malaria parasite to drugs. Another approach to this could be to control the mosquito that spreads the parasite.

Obonyo was awarded a PhD from Utrecht University on September 19. His thesis is titled 'Malaria, anaemia and antimalarial drug resistance in African children'.