Pink Eye...Its EVERYWHERE

Pink Eye...its everywhere.

Written on 5/5/2015

It started with a few students coming into class with swollen, red, itchy eyes...and suddenly it was everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

I urged my students to stay home if they were sick. I told them to wash their hands and faces. To not touch their eyes. And a student yelled out (in Malagasy) "But it comes from the wind!" and still I saw students with extrememly red puffy eyes coming into class, and it was spreading through the classes and town like wild fire.

Suddenly, I was surrounded by pink eye. I started sending students home and washing my hands obsessively. Then, I went to get juice for the Center's Sunday Afternoon Juice and Talk. The young woman who sells juice greeted me with sunglasses covering very puffy eyes....

A few hours later...my eye started to itch. I felt it start to swell, and soon, it was red and extremely swollen. I had caught pink eye.

Trying to set a good example, I didn't go back to school until I was pink-eye free. I didn't shake anyone's hands. I used the medicine the doctors told me to use. It was a week of boredom, and feeling extremely guilty for not teaching my students, but I am finally pink-eye free!

Most notably, I realized why students were coming to school with pink eye. Its hard to miss a week of class, especially when you aren't feeling really sick, you just have an itchy eye. My students are a little bit behind because I was sick, and if they missed a week, that is many missed lessons!

Once you get pink eye, the medicine, which can cost the same amount as a few days of work for some, was not being used. Many people were washing their eyes with soap, putting honey in their eyes, or attempting to cure their eyes with lemon juice. Although I read some articles that these home-remedies can work, they aren't 100% affected and with watered down, and possibly unclean honey, very acidic lemons, and water that isn't always the cleanest for washing, these remedies could do more harm than hurt.

Pink eye is still everywhere, and I can't help but question how it will ever leave the area with more and more students getting sick. I keep urging my students to wash their hands and I hope they will stay at home if they wake up with red, itchy eyes. I've sent kids home from school and told them to wait until they get better.

For now, I'm just obsessively washing my hands and face...there is no way I'm getting pink eye again! It's interesting to see how something that we pass by as a simple illness that can be avoided by good hygiene and treated by eye drops and a few days away from school or work, can quickly spread through a community.

It shows just how important education about hygiene is! And reminded me that I really need to go talk to the Elementary School by my house about educating their students on how to use the new latrine WASH (an NGO) recently built on their school grounds. A little bit of good hygiene can lead to a long, healthy life!

UPDATE: (as of 5/14/2015): Pink eye is a little bit less noticeable in schools but I've heard its making its way up the coast and to different parts of the island. Also, I've noticed the students at the Elementary school have been using their latrine. I mentioned something to the adjunct director at my school and he said he talked to her and now its open! Could have been coincidental, but still good to see kids learning healthy habits!