Associated organisationsImperial College London · Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine · Durham University · University of Glasgow · University of Oxford · University of WarwickEurope PMC affiliations are not treated as award recipients or mapped locations.
Funding£2.5M
PeriodApr 2016 — Nov 2019
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
Malaria prevention nets are failing to protect 60% of children in Burkina Faso, despite two national distribution campaigns. The problem is that the mosquitoes carrying malaria have become resistant to the insecticides coating the nets, and they also bite outdoors or at times when people are not under the nets. No one has yet measured how much these mosquito-related factors matter compared to other issues like healthcare access or human behaviour. This project will collect field data and build transmission models to quantify exactly how much protection current nets still provide in insecticide-resistant regions of Africa. If the researchers can identify the weakest links in the current prevention chain, they can pinpoint which additional tools—such as indoor spraying, larval control, or new net designs—would most cost-effectively push malaria transmission toward zero. Success would give national malaria programmes and funders like the WHO clear, evidence-based guidance on where to invest limited resources, potentially saving thousands of children’s lives each year in high-burden countries where progress has stalled.
View original technical description
Impressive reductions in malaria have occurred throughout sub-Saharan Africa over the past 12 years. However progress has not been geographically uniform and there are some high-burden countries where, despite good coverage with long lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs), the main preventative measure recommended by WHO, parasite prevalence rates and mortality from malaria remain obstinately high. Burkina Faso falls into this category. Despite two successful national LLIN distribution campaigns 60 % of children are persistently infected with malaria. Increased resistance to the pyrethroid insecticides used in LLINs and extensive transmission by mosquitoes biting outside the home, or at times when people are not protected by LLINs, are likely reducing the impact of LLINs but the relative importance of these poorly characterised vector factors, in relation to other human or health system factors has never been determined. This project will collect extensive empirical data and use models of malaria transmission to quantify the level of protection provided by LLINs in an insecticide resistant Africa. Via a detailed understanding of the factors limiting the efficacy of current tools we will identify the most cost effective, complementary interventions that would drive malaria transmission towards zero.
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