Even in the technology - intensive world of medicine , there ’s a lot to be said for simplicity . A new study [ PDF ] from the World Health Organization ( WHO ) , which monitored 340 locations in five countries for five years , finds that bed net treated with pesticide proceed to stop malaria transmission , even as mosquitoes develop pesticide resistance . The account was present at the annual coming together of the American Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene ( ASTMH ) .
Mosquito internet have literally been around for long time ; the Grecian historian Herodotusnotedtheir use in Egypt as early as the 5th century BCE . For all that time , they were pretty in force — certainly effective enough that people kept using them — but that efficacy got a encouragement in the mid-20th century when we take up spray them with pesticide . The year 2000 saw the introduction of thelong - go insecticidal net(LLIN ) , an cheap seam net made with insecticide - treated framework that drove down the number of malaria typeface even further .
But laboured insecticide use has its costs . Pesticides are similar to antibiotics , in that they ca n’t kill every individual one of the metal money they ’re meant to destroy . The survivor procreate , creatingnew generationsthat are able-bodied to resist the treatment . And the more we utilise , the quicker they can adapt . We ’re now facing acrisisof antibiotic resistivity , and pesticide ohmic resistance is not far behind . mosquito in 60 res publica have already grow a immunity to the pesticides used in LLINs .
Sven Torfin / WHO 2016
therefore , researchers at the WHO’sGlobal Malaria Programmewere concerned that the salary increase of pesticide - repellent mosquitoes would create a drop-off in LLIN effectivity . They spent five eld survey LLIN use and pesticide resistance in 340 sites in malaria - leaden Benin , Cameroon , India , Kenya , and Sudan .
The results were astonishingly irrefutable . People who used LLINs around their bed at night were importantly less likely than others to become infected . From 2000 to 2015 , the WHO estimates , intervention like LLINs prevent around 663 million novel malaria infections in sub - Saharan Africa . And of those possible case , 69 per centum were prevented by LLINs .
Co - author Tessa Knox of the WHO note that the effectiveness of LLINs comes not from the pesticide or the net income alone , but from their fuse exponent . “ A insubordinate mosquito may not die at once after landing on a profit , but it could bear on to take in insecticide as it seek a way to get through and prick a person beneath the web , ” shesaidin a statement . “ This may eventually kill the mosquito and turn back onward transmission of malaria parasites . ”
Encouraging though these finding may be , expert caution that there ’s still a lot more work to do as pesticide ohmic resistance continues to spread out .
Stephen Higgs is president of the ASTMH . “ This work provides supporting word that we have not yet run out of time in battle insecticide resistance , ” he say in the statement . “ However , we must take advantage of the time we now have to invest in enquiry and generate unexampled tools that will allow us to finally get the better of this complex and intriguing disease . ”
A fistful of those new peter are already in the work . Some researchers are exploringchicken feathersas a natural mosquito repellant , while others are developinghigh - tech pillsthat could extradite a week ’s worth of malaria medicine with one sup .
