World Vision gives us this pro­file of a preg­nant mother strug­gling with malaria. The dis­ease is pre­ventable, yet 10,000 preg­nant women die of malaria every year in sub-Saharan Africa. Insec­ti­cide treated mos­quito nets can keep peo­ple safe, but it is a strug­gle for aid groups to dis­trib­ute the nets and make sure they are being used.

From World Vision, writ­ers Andrea Peer and Jessie Lester intro­duce us to Esperance.

At 18 years old, Esper­ance con­tracted malaria for the first time. “It started on Tues­day,” she explains. “I had no appetite and a ter­ri­ble headache. I was also cough­ing and felt nau­seous, like I wanted to vomit. I couldn’t eat,” she says.

Esper­ance grew up in the moun­tains of Rwanda, where tem­per­a­tures were not warm enough to host the anophe­les mos­quito that car­ries the malaria par­a­site. When she mar­ried and moved to a warmer region, Esper­ance was exposed to the dis­ease for the first time. “Near my new home there is a river and bushes. A lot of mos­qui­toes come and bite us. That’s why I believe I am suf­fer­ing from malaria,” she says.

Four days after her fever began, Esper­ance slipped into a coma, and her hus­band of seven months car­ried her on foot to Rwanda’s Kigeme Hos­pi­tal, one hour away.

Because she had never con­tracted malaria, Esperance’s body had no immu­nity to the dis­ease, mak­ing her risk extremely high. And if that wasn’t fright­en­ing enough, this young woman’s bout with the ill­ness came at the worst pos­si­ble time — four months into her first pregnancy.

Hyacinth Umhoza, a nurse at Kigeme Hos­pi­tal, acknowl­edges that the risk of malaria is much greater for women who are preg­nant. “Their immune system[s] [are] weak­ened because they are feed­ing two bod­ies, so vit­a­mins and min­er­als go to two peo­ple. Any dis­ease can attack both of them,” she explains.

At the hos­pi­tal, Esper­ance received three rounds of intra­venous ther­apy, which finally brought her out of the coma. “When you get some­one who is uncon­scious and you bring them back, it is a mir­a­cle,” says Hyacinth. “Esper­ance has recov­ered. It seems that God is behind this,” she adds.

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