The first of two major documentaries about malaria, this is the story of Peter Kombo, chief of Kiagware village in the Kisii highlands, Kenya, as he battles through the malaria season. Many of his villagers, particularly the young, are dangerously sick, and Chief Kombo struggles to get more help for them from the local authorities, without success.

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Unable to afford transport to their district hospital, the people of Kiagware turn instead to local herbalists and to the quacks - untrained doctors - to treat them. These quacks can wrongly prescribe Western drugs, sometimes with fatal consequences.

Chief Kombo is faced with a deadly dilemma: stop them treating patients altogether and leave his people no hope at all, or allow them to continue and risk more deaths.

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The desperate case of the Mauti family highlights just how difficult Chief Kombo's task is. Touched by their plight, he borrows money to pay for their son Walter to be taken to hospital.

It comes just in time, as one more day without treatment could have cost Walter's life. But as Chief Kombo points out, he cannot pay for everyone in the village, and not long after Walter returns from hospital, he has malaria again.