Research Results: Toxic Mosquito Net Effectively Prevents Malaria, Mosquitoes Guaranteed Wing Cramps

Saturday, March 26, 2022 – 01:18 WIB

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Malaria mosquitoes. Photo Between

jpnn.com, LONDON – Bed nets treated with a new type of insecticide reduced malaria cases in children by almost half in a large trial in Tanzania, according to research in The Lancet.

The results of the research raise hopes for a new weapon in the fight against this ancient killer disease.

Bed nets have played an important role in the rapid progress of the fight against malaria in recent decades.

However, that progress has been hampered in recent years, in part because the mosquitoes that spread the infection are becoming increasingly resistant to the insecticides used in existing mosquito nets.

In 2020, 627,000 people died from malaria, mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Now, researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the UK, the National Institute for Medical Research and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College in Tanzania, and the University of Ottawa in Canada have demonstrated that a new insecticide, a first in 40 years, safe and effective in real-world randomized trials.

Bed nets treated with chlorfenapyr and pyrethroids, the chemicals commonly used, reduced malaria prevalence by 43 percent in the first year and 37 percent in the second year of the trial.

The study involved more than 39,000 households and followed more than 4,500 children aged 6 months to 14 years.

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