Blogs from Blantyre, Southern, Malawi, Africa - page 3

Imparting First Aid skills to the youth of Malawi One of my main focuses while working with St John Ambulance in Malawi, is working with Fred Demster on the First Aid for Schools program. Started in 2007, it was set up when it was realised the shocking lack of basic First Aid skills in the general population, in an effort to improve this schools and school children were targeted, and over the past 3 years training has been taking place. The 12 hour course, over 2 or 3 days (though this is flexible to suit the schools needs), focuses on basic first aid skills such as casualty management, cardiovascular disorders and bone and joint injuries. In the past several schools have been visited, mostly in the Bangwe area of Blantyre, though a couple of others as ... read more

Almost thirty years ago a report was published by the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about patients dying from ordinarily non-lethal diseases because of a mysterious suppression of the immune system. First noted in homosexual men and then later in injection drug users, blood transfusion patients, haemophiliacs, heterosexuals and newborns, in 1982 the term Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was coined. Many theories about its cause were around in the early 80’s but in 1984 a virus was identified as the causal factor. First called ‘human T-cell lymphotropic virus type III (HTLV III) and Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus (LAV) it wasn’t until 1986 the name settled on what we know today; Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). We now think that the virus originated in ‘Pan Troglodytes’ a species of chimpanzee and was transferred to humans via ... read more

I arrived in Malawi on Thursday, after only 15 or 16 hours of travelling... The flight was OK but came with the usual problems (Small seats, bad food, TV not working) but this was more than made up for in the flight from Nairobi to Lilongwe where the plane was very empty and so I was able to have 3 seats to myself, and have a proper sleep for a few hours rather than dose off wondering if I was going to fall on the guy on one side and the spectacular views of Kenya’s mountains out of the window. I also got talking to some of the guy’s around me, Peter who is going to the ‘Lake of Lights’ music festival up in the north by, yes, the lake and John who is going to ... read more

Retail Therapy... read more

Construction in Malawi... read more