rural settings, effective treatments for degedege included urinating on affected children, or fuming them with elephant dung. Injections, on the other hand, were thought to have the power to kill some degedege sufferers. The role of grandmothers and mothers-in-law as key decision makers regarding cases of degedege was an important finding of the study, suggesting that these individuals be specifically targeted with information and teaching regarding severe malaria (Comoro et al., 2003).

The education sector already knows the importance of health to schoolchildren as evidenced by the child-friendly schools of UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), the health promoting schools of the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International School Health Initiative of the World Bank. Malaria is a disease particularly well suited to public health partnerships with teachers, principals, and designers of school curricula. Although malaria in areas of stable transmission is most common and severe in children who are not yet attending school, it still remains an important cause of mortality (10-20 percent of all cases) and morbidity in schoolchildren (Bundy et al., 2000). In addition, malaria can significantly influence educational outcomes, accounting for roughly three to eight percent of all reasons for absenteeism (Colbourne, 1955; Trape et al., 1987, 1993), 13 to 50 percent of school days missed per year due to preventable medical causes (Bundy et al., 2000), as well as residual neurologic sequelae impairing cognitive and developmental potential in one to five percent of children infected early in life (Snow et al., 1999).

Children in rural African households assume significant responsibility at a young age—for example, looking after siblings, fetching water or firewood, and cooking (van der Geest and Geissler, 2003). They also participate in the collection and preparation of herbal medicines and are sent to buy pharmaceuticals (Sternberg et al., 2000; Prince and Geissler, 2001; Prince et al., 2001). Primary schoolchildren’s knowledge of medicines and self-treatment were investigated between 1996 and 1998 among the Luo of western Kenya and the Iteso of eastern Uganda. These studies showed that children of primary school age possess knowledge of both herbal remedies and “hospital” medicines and that they use medicines to treat themselves as well as their younger siblings. However, few children questioned knew the correct dosage of chloroquine for the treatment of malaria or the difference between antimalarials, antipyretics, and analgesics (Geissler et al., 2001).

Children can be important agents for change for themselves and their families. Similarly, school health education can have a significant yield in terms of community-wide understanding of malaria control and treatment. It has been suggested that school-based teaching of medicine could start