Project
Improving use of insecticide treated nets
Research in malaria-prone regions of sub-Saharan Africa shows that insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) can reduce infections by 50% and malaria-related child deaths by 20%. Despite the efforts of international aid agencies and NGOs, which have distributed millions of free ITNs throughout Africa, the lifesaving nets are not readily available in many of the rural areas where 80% of people at risk of getting malaria live.
NIMR research scientist Emanuel Makundi is leading this project looking for solutions to the problems of access – including the high cost of ITNs ($6.50 each, putting them out of reach of many households) – as well as the social and cultural factors preventing more widespread use of the nets in malaria areas.
Muslims, for example, do not use white bed sheets as religious burial cloths are white. They will not use the white mosquito nets for the same reason. In coastal communities, some fishermen prefer to use the mosquito nets to catch fish.
This NIMR project is focusing on education, with particular emphasis on school children and youth groups as well as community leaders, local organizations, religious groups and traditional healers. Community owned resource persons (CORPs) are being recruited to lead the education initiative which will be reinforced with community-based payment and distribution programs.
Expected Outcomes
• Improved coverage in the use of ITNs at a community level
• Increased knowledge of barriers impeding effective use of ITNs
Impact
• Reduction of morbidity & mortality of severe malaria for children under 5 years
• One student trained at Masters level in the Tanzania (University of Dar es Salaam/ Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences)
Newsfeed
Impact Stories
Kate bought a mosquito net for less than 20 US cents at the Kasungu hospital in Malawi.
In a small district hospital of Kasungu, central Malawi, Kate is wrapping her three-day-old son in a yellow blanket. She smiles at her baby, oblivious to her environment. She doesn’t notice the green mosquito net that hangs above her bed, like a colourful detail in the white room. This detail could save her son’s life.
Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds. A simple US$3 mosquito net could protect them from this deadly disease. Additionally, providing pregnant women with anti-malaria tablets twice during their pregnancy greatly reduces their risk of infection and of having low-birth weight babies, a major cause of infant death.
“I have had malaria and everybody I know has had malaria,” says Kate. “During my pregnancy I came several times to the hospital for ante-natal check ups and the staff told me about mosquito nets. I will buy a net from the hospital when I go home. I want to protect my baby.” She also received an anti-malarial drug during the fourth and seventh months of her pregnancy.
Kate is one of the 2,500 women who delivered their infant at the Kasungu hospital in 2002 and bought a mosquito net for 50 kwacha (less than 20 US cents). The price of the mosquito net, which is sold with an insecticide treatment kit, is heavily subsidized by UNICEF in the rural hospitals and health care centres of Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the world. During the rainy season, when the risk of malaria is the highest, the Kasungu Hospital sells up to 450 nets a day.
(Story converted to an Impact Story by Zazengo) 251
