Suzy’s Fight: Eliminating Malaria Despite COVID-19 and Deadly Storms

By The Global Fund

August 30^th, 2022

A large blue and white sign posted on the front of Suzy Haylock’s house says “Solicite aqui el examen de malaria y reciba tratamiento gratis” or “Request your Malaria Test Here and Get Treatment for Free”.

Suzy says she has seen thousands of patients, either testing or treating them for malaria, since she became a community health volunteer two decades ago.

“Every week there are 25 people, almost 30. I love my people. They come to my house, and I look after them at night, in the morning, at whatever time,” she says. “I look after everyone, regardless of where they come from.”

Over the last 20 years, volunteer health workers have been the backbone of Honduras’ impressive wins against malaria.

In 2019, only 319 cases of malaria were recorded in all of Honduras – a massive decline compared to the 35,000 cases the country recorded just two decades before in the year 2000.

Suzy’s Fight: Eliminating Malaria Despite COVID-19 and Deadly Storms

Suzy is Miskito, an Indigenous community from Central America. She lives in Cauquira, a small coastal town in Gracias a Dios department that is surrounded by lagoons and beside the Caribbean Sea.

Many of the people in Suzy’s community are poor, with most relying on fishing or transporting passengers by boat to and from the closest city, Porto Lempira, to earn an income.

Suzy and colleague Javier visit fishermen to educate them on malaria symptoms and inform them on where they can go for testing and treatment of the disease.

A wife, mother and grandmother, Suzy bakes and sells bread and fishes for jellyfish to help support her family. In her off time, Suzy is a community health volunteer fighting malaria – vital work as Gracias a Dios is one of the few regions in Honduras where malaria is still a serious threat.

Suzy and her family at their home in Cauquira, Honduras.

In her role, Suzy not only welcomes patients into her home but also conducts outreach in her community. Suzy and the other volunteers visit families and community groups, often traveling by boat through the lagoons, or by motorcycle through difficult terrain to reach people who are most vulnerable - children under 5, pregnant women, fishermen - to raise awareness on prevention while providing health services.

“I take blood samples do rapid diagnostic tests and I diagnose. I then give them tablets straight away,” she says.

Volunteer fumigator Hamed Davis travels with Suzy by boat to reach families living along the many lagoons in Cauquira.

The health volunteers also distribute and help install bed nets, organize indoor residual spraying, and collect mosquito samples to support surveillance activities.

Volunteers prepare a mosquito net while an infant lies sleeping.

Suzy says many lives would be lost if there were no community health workers. “There would be quite a lot of malaria-related deaths because people here are poor,” she says.

COVID-19 and Extreme Weather Reverse Progress Made Against Malaria

At the beginning of 2020, Honduras was on the cusp of eliminating malaria.

But then COVID-19 hit, and later that same year Tropical Storm Eta ripped through the country followed by Hurricane Iota only two weeks later. The deadly storms closed health units, including facilities providing malaria services. Surveillance and tracing of malaria cases had to be scaled back, and less people were visiting clinics for testing and treatment due to fear of contracting COVID-19.

In 2020, rather than recording a decrease in cases as Honduras had done nearly every year for the last two decades, the number of malaria cases recorded increased to just over 900. In 2021 there was another increase to approximately 1,650 recorded cases.

Suzy says it was an incredibly difficult time. People sick with COVID-19 would come to her house thinking they had malaria. When their test came back negative, she could only refer them to the health center.

“Many people died… plenty of them were from here… they were my neighbors,” she says.

During one of the storms a tree fell and damaged the bathroom in her house. She says the roof has never been fixed and still leaks today.

But Suzie never stopped providing malaria testing and treatment. She was given masks and gloves to protect herself and remained dedicated to keeping her community safe.

Suzy Haylock reviews a map of Cauquira that is used to track malaria cases, medication deliveries and other essential data used in the fight against malaria.

Getting Back on Track to Malaria Elimination

In response to the setbacks Honduras experienced, the Global Fund, the National Malaria Control Program, local partners including NGO Global Communities and local communities have stepped-up efforts to get back on track to eliminate malaria.

Actions taken include strengthening case detection, increasing testing networks and scaling-up vector control and case management.

Suzy and Javier review a blood sample that will be tested for malaria.

For example, in 2019 there were 241 locations across the country with lab capacity to diagnose malaria – in just two years this increased 20% to 300 units. Honduras also significantly scaled up the use of rapid diagnostic tests. In 2014 there were only eight community malaria testing spaces in all of Gracias a Dios department, and all of them were concentrated around Puerto Lempira. Today there are 457 covering the entire department. Tens of thousands of families have had their homes protected by indoor residual spraying and have received mosquito bed nets.

The country is also recruiting and training more volunteer health workers like Suzy.

Twelve years ago, there were 2,300 community health workers in the county, today there are almost 1,000 more.

Despite dedicating 20 years to fighting malaria, Suzy plans to continue her work. She says she is confident that with additional support, her community can eliminate the disease.