Mosquito screens found to be cheap and effective in malaria prevention

Trials of a screen-based malaria prevention programme in 500 homes in The Gambia, Africa, have led to a 50 per cent reduction in malaria transmission and anaemia in children. 

House screens trials have shown to dramatically reduce malaria transmission.
Image source: MRC

A child dies from malaria in Africa every 30 seconds and infection can lead to an increased risk of anaemia, which can also prove fatal. Yet to date,screens have often been ignored in favour of using drugs and insecticides.

The research, funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID) was carried out by scientists from Durham University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and MRC The Gambia. It tested two types of screens to protect children against malaria.
The trial was carried out in the homes of 1,085 children living in or around the town of Farafenni. The researchers used two methods to prevent mosquitoes from entering the houses. In the first, screens were attached to windows and doors, and holes in the eaves were closed. The second method was to place a net ceiling inside the house. They then set traps for the insects to enable them to count how many mosquitoes that made it through the screens.

Both interventions were found to dramatically reduce malaria transmission and led to 50 per cent fewer anaemic children in the screened groups compared to those living in unscreened homes.

Professor Steve Lindsay, MRC researcher and Chair in Disease Ecology at Durham University, said: “Our findings show that screening homes is a cheap, simple public health intervention that can save lives. Mosquito-proofing homes is one of the principal tools that has been associated with protection against malaria, yet it has been ignored during long term anti-malarial drug- and insecticide-driven campaigns.’’

House screening works by reducing exposure to malaria-transmitting mosquitoes and has the added benefit of protecting everyone in the room.

Feedback from the trial was positive, with nine out of ten people who participated wished to have, or to keep, full screening. Comments from trial participants include: “If it would cost selling a goat to repair our screening, we would do it as we know they are very useful”
 

• Read more about the trial on the MRC website.

The original research paper: Efficacy of two different house screening interventions against exposure to malaria and anaemia in children in The Gambia: a randomized controlled trial is published in The Lancet.