Bed nets treated with a new kind of insecticide cut malaria cases in children by almost half in a large trial in Tanzania, according to a study in The Lancet, raising hopes of a new weapon in the fight against the age-old killer.
Bed nets have been instrumental to the vast progress the world has made in recent decades against malaria, with millions of lives saved. But progress has stalled in the last few years, in part because the mosquitoes which spread the infection have increasingly developed resistance to the insecticide used in existing nets.Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.
The study involved more than 39,000 households and followed over 4,500 children aged 6 months to 14 years old. The nets, developed by BASF Chlorfenapyr works differently than pyrethroid, effectively grounding the mosquitoes by causing wing cramps and making them unable to fly, and therefore bite, spreading the infection. The chemical was first proposed for use against malaria 20 years ago, and has been used for pest control since the 1990s.
"This is the first evidence in real-life conditions," Dr Jacklin Mosha, the study's lead author from the National Institute for Medical Research, Tanzania, told Reuters.