{"id":5369,"date":"2019-09-18T09:49:08","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T06:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5369"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:33","slug":"dams-increase-the-risk-of-malaria-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/09\/18\/dams-increase-the-risk-of-malaria-heres-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Dams Increase The Risk Of Malaria. Here\u2019s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>By Solomon Kibret<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many people in Africa are&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/monkey-cage\/wp\/2017\/10\/30\/four-things-you-should-know-about-food-security-in-africa\/\">food\ninsecure<\/a>, vulnerable to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/why-africa-is-particularly-vulnerable-to-climate-change-41775\">shifts\nin climate<\/a>&nbsp;and do not have&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/millions-of-urban-africans-still-dont-have-electricity-heres-what-can-be-done-92211\">access\nto electricity<\/a>. There\u2019s also a problem with accessing reliable, clean\nwater, particularly in places with irregular rains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.internationalrivers.org\/resources\/what-is-driving-dams-in-africa-1695\">Building\ndams<\/a>&nbsp;is one way that African countries are trying to address these\nmyriad issues. A number of large and small dams are currently under\nconstruction, particularly&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hydrocoop.org\/which-dams-in-africa\/\">in sub-Saharan Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But while dams could solve some problems, it may also bring\nnew ones \u2013 like malaria. Water is crucial to the spread of this mosquito-borne\ndisease. That\u2019s because mosquitoes breed and lay their eggs in or near bodies\nof water. The insects prefer shallow pools for these purposes, and dams provide\nshorelines that offer just this: many shallow pools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The number of people living close to (less than 5 km away) large dam reservoirs in sub-Saharan Africa increased from around 14 million to about 19 million between 2000 and 2015, according to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/malariajournal.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/s12936-019-2933-5\">our study<\/a>. Nearly&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/malariajournal.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/s12936-019-2933-5\">75%<\/a>&nbsp;of the population stays in areas where there is malaria. During the same 15 year period, the number of large dams&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/malariajournal.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/s12936-019-2933-5\">increased from 884 to 919<\/a>&nbsp;in Africa. These figures are conservative since only two-third of African dams are registered in the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.icold-cigb.org\/GB\/world_register\/world_register_of_dams.asp\">World Register of Dams<\/a>&nbsp;database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/dams-increase-the-risk-of-malaria-heres-why-123475\">Continue\nreading\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Solomon Kibret Many people in Africa are&nbsp;food insecure, vulnerable to&nbsp;shifts in climate&nbsp;and do not have&nbsp;access to electricity. There\u2019s also a problem with accessing reliable, clean water, particularly in places&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}