How much is a human being worth?

Last Monday I got a call from a worker who informed me he would not come to work as his neighbour past away. He told me that he died from Malaria. I’ve been living in Uganda for 4 months and heard of a couple of deaths caused by Malaria. Recently a neighbours kid also died from Malaria. I really don’t understand why people still have to die from that disease as the treatment costs only 10’000 Ugandan Shillings, which is about 4 US$ or 3.45 CHF which is about the equivalent to the daily income of one of our workers on the farm. It’s expensive, for sure, but isn’t the life of a child worth that amount?

Fact is, that there’s no vaccination for Malaria and there’s no way to prevent oneself from getting Malaria, even after all those years of research. Even if one uses repellent, mosquito nets, appropriate clothing and takes medicine preventively (which will not protect you from getting Malaria, instead it only softens the symptoms of the disease. In fact it’ll even blur or distort the results from your blood samples that a serious doctor will take before choosing the appropriate treatment), one can still be infected with Malaria which is - without treatment - still a fatal disease. Let alone most Ugandans cannot afford any of these measures anyway.

There’s plants that can be prepared as tea or dried and consumed in capsules that seem to cure the disease but it seems to be too expensive to get the approval to sell it as medicine as the necessary studies are pretty expensive. It also seems like the pharmaceutical industry shows no interest in doing the necessary work as they’re more interested in selling specific active substances they can extract and then have it patented. So why wasting resources on researching a ready-made medicine from mother nature which may not be patented later on anyway?

There’s been promising field tests in other African countries with Artemisia annua, a plant that can even be cultivated in the affected areas, which seems to be very effective in Malaria treatment. So, who knows, maybe one day no more people will have to die from Malaria as they will just grow their own cure?

Well, how much is a human being worth? – Not even 4 US$, obviously…