Malaria strikes Texas church member after mission trip

Shane Scott, a teacher and coach at Dallas Christian School in Mesquite, Texas, is hospitalized with a severe case of malaria.
Fellow church members ask for prayers for Scott, who contracted the disease during a spring-break mission trip to Ateiku, Ghana, with a group from the school, said Julie Truex, a member of the Saturn Road Church of Christ in Garland, Texas, where Scott attends.

Students from Dallas Christian School work side-by-side with Ghanaians in Ateiku, Ghana. (Photo provided by Martha Leeson)

The mission team participated in the dedication of the Christina Adcock and Sons Christian Hospital, a church-supported work in Ghana.
“Shane has suffered more than a dad can bear to watch,” the teacher’s father, John Scott, said in a Facebook post. “Malaria is a wicked disease.”
John Scott is minister of mission effectiveness at Christian Care Centers Inc. in Mesquite. He said the family has received messages of support from as far away as China.
“The entire village of Ateiku, Ghana, where this was contracted, is fasting and praying,” he said. “Dallas Christian students have halted class to pray. We  offer our deepest thanks to the hundreds of sweet folks who are reaching out to us and carrying our son before God’s throne.”
Peggy Good, a Church of Christ member in Alabama, died in July 2010 from complications due to malaria. She contracted a severe form of the disease on a mission trip to Ghana five years prior to her death. Good’s malaria resurfaced after a mission trip in 2010 and resulted in organ failure.
About 1,500 cases of malaria are reported every year in the U.S., although the disease was eradicated there by the 1950s, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Most Americans who contract the disease get it while traveling to countries with high levels of malaria.
Only a handful of U.S. citizens who contract malaria die from the disease.
Worldwide, malaria claims between 700,000 and 1 million lives each year, according to the World Health Organization. Eighty-nine percent of those deaths occur in Africa, where malaria is the second-leading cause of death, after HIV/AIDS.

• Feedback
  Our prayers are with the individual and the family. We have made over 15 trips to South India where Malaria is also endemic. As tough as the disease is, it highlights the need to be vigilant in pre-trip preparations. This should include visiting the www.CDC.gov travel medicine site and making sure you have the proper immunizations and medications for the area of the world you are traveling. I do not know the circumstances of this case but it is a good reminder that antimalarial meds are strongly encouraged in many parts of the world. Your local primary care physician should be able to help you or direct you to a travel medicine clinic.
  http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/ghana.aspx
  We hope and pray for a full recovery. I encourage all who are planning to travel to other countries to take all precautions necessary and recommended.

  Dean Mausolf

  April, 8 2011

  We’ve had that many times. Just think, they banned DDT.

  Lawrence Barr

  April, 8 2011

  We feel for you brother. God give you healing.

  Lawrence Barr

  April, 8 2011

  Our good Lord is in control. My heart goes to all the families whose lives (or that of their loved ones)have been affected by malaria while on mission trips. The life of my co-worker in missions from the pan handle of Oklahoma, USA, was taken away by malaria 18 years ago but the legacy he left in missions still lives on.

  Nyabuto Marube

  April, 9 2011

  We add Brother Scott to our prayer list. There are obviously risks in going to 3rd world countries. Reasonable precautions need to be taken and we still need to go. The biggest tragedy of things like this is that some won’t go or won’t let their children go because of the risks. I’ve checked and Jesus didn’t say “Go if its totally safe” or “Go if its risk free”. If it makes any sense to send men and women into harms way to defend out way of life it makes alot more sense to send them, even in harms way, to share the gospel and help those who didn’t have the good fortune of being born here. Also, everyone of the 700,000 – 1,000,000 who die due to Malaria is someone’s son, daughter, father or mother. God loves them no less than he loves us. This is a problem that is largely fixable…..many times for a $10. mosquito net.

  Dennis Cady

  April, 9 2011

  Our brothers in the United States.
  We pray for you always.
  Do pray for us also.
  For many of us here also die through this malaria ailment.
  Provision of Malaria drugs and mosquito nets would help eradicate this disease.
  We live to preach.
  Whether we live or die,
  We live for Christ,
  and when we die, we die
  we die to the glory of God.
  Philippians 1 :21.

  Michael Fordjour

  April, 9 2011

  I will certainly be keeping Shane in my prayers and wish him a speedy recovery. No doubt, vector-borne diseases are a serious threat to many people in the in the world, claiming well over 1 million victims annually. In my secular job, I am a medical entomologist whose mission is to prevent diseases such as malaria, dengue, yellow fever, West Nile virus, etc.
  As with many insect vectored diseases, education and prevention (i.e., the use of vaccination, chemoprophylaxis, and repellents) are the keys to not getting sick. Some of these diseases are even (re-)establishing themselves in the United States as we all know about West Nile virus over the past decade and even the lesser known Dengue outbreaks in 2009-2010 in south Florida and on Oahu, Hawaii this past week.
  With that said, we have to know are enemy – even when we’re out doing the Lord’s work. A good resource can be found at http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/. This certainly is not meant to scare anyone nor should it deter us from carrying out the Great Commission. We simply need to understand what we’re up against and how to best protect ourselves.
  God Bless,
  Stephen Wolf

  Stephen Wolf

  April, 9 2011

  May God bless Shane for going on God’s mission trip, I’m so sorry he contracted that horrible disease, may God through our prayers help him to recover quickly.
  I have made several trips to Ecuador (South America), sometimes going into an area where malaria can be contracted. I always take an antimalarial medication, in my case Lariam (mefloquine), and I use a lot of insect repellant and a mosquito net, if available, one year I took one down with me, but one was already set up where I slept. I plan, God willing, to go to that same area this June. Hopefully, the precautions that I take, by the grace of God, will keep the protozoans away.
  I’m not sure anyone really understands the enviromental impact of DDT, it may have not been as bad as we have been led to believe. But I have read that we were almost winning the fight against malaria when we were using DDT, and since it’s use was stopped, have been steadily losing and now, losing badly. May God allow a vaccine be developed against Plasmodium!

  Greg Dwyer

  April, 11 2011