Malaria

Now that I work in the periodicals department of the library, I get to see a lot of magazines and journals that I never would have gone looking for otherwise. I have certain assigned sections of the department that are mine to care for. I mostly just make sure the shelves look nice and a few other tasks. My assignment covers the Q section, which in the Library of Congress system is all the sciences. It's really interesting that I got the biology, biological chemistry, physiology and medicine section. I catch myself thinking about biology when I'm at work, and I also see titles that make me want to just stop what I'm doing to read them, but I can't. So right now, I've just finished work, and I'm still in the periodicals department. I started reading an article in National Geographic that talks about malaria and how deadly it is. I've been thinking a lot lately about international development, and it seems that malaria can really decimate a country's economy faster than just about anything. I also thought it was really interesting that in Zambia, out of every 1,000 children under age 5, there are 1,353 infections each year. That's terrible. Why does Africa always get hit the hardest? They have the highest infection rate with AIDS too, with 75% of sub-Saharan Africans infected. It's just not fair. AIDS always kills the weakest. Any physical illness can bring death, and with so many malaria infections, there is no way to avoid infection of one or the other. I wish there was no such thing as malaria.