Contracting malaria while doing development work overseas was ‘unbearably painful’ says a UNICEF staff member in an interview with the Waikato Times.

In the feature story, Vicki Soanes says that she got malaria while volunteering in a remote part of Zambia.

“You realise you are pretty sick, very quickly. If I moved my eyes ever so slightly my brain hurt,” Vicki says in the interview.

The Waikato Times feature is helping to raise awareness about the one million people who die from malaria each year, most of them children.

UNICEF NZ is asking Kiwis to get behind its UNDER COVER movement to save lives. People can buy a protective bed net for just $11 which can be used by up to four children. The net gives a chance to sleep peacefully at night with a significantly decreased risk of contracting malaria.

The UNDER COVER campaign aims to provide 35,000 insecticide-treated bed nets – enough to keep up to 140,000 children safe from malaria. It is part of a global UNICEF drive to deliver 25m bed nets by the end of 2010.

How you can help
Support UNICEF NZ’s UNDER COVER malaria campaign

Buy a mosquito net for just $11

Talk about the UNDER COVER campaign in your blog, Twitter, or on Facebook

Organise your own fundraising initiative -- read about a group of Kiwi scientists who supported the UNDER COVER campaign by not talking for two days!