Long Lasting Insecticide-treated Nets

LLINs - as they’re commonly abbreviated - is at the core of our project, so I figured I’d tell you a bit about them.

Treated with an insecticide which kill or repel mosquitoes for 3-4 years these nets are truly ‘long lasting’, and they can even be washed several times without any decrease in their efficiency. To put it in short, LLINs are superior mosquito nets.

You use the net during the night - the mosquitoes prime breeding time - where you sleep thus normally an easy victim, but with these super nets, a mosquito killer for years!

LLINs actually originates from ITNs (Insecticide-Treated Nets), a treated mosquito net that’s neither washable nor long lasting; they have to be re-treated every half year, what a mess..

The effect of using mosquito nets (no insecticide) to fight malaria, was already proven in 1914 with the building of the Panama Canal. At the first attempt in the late 1900th century more than 20.000 workers died, mainly due to malaria, and the project had to be stopped. At the second attempt in 1914, scientist had found that malaria is transmitted through mosquitoes, and a major effort was made to prevent the mosquitoes in reaching the workers; both through draining of swamps, but also, more importantly, through the use of mosquito nets. (You can read more about the Panama-intervention here).

Unicef, Red Cross and alike are currently distributing LLINs - through big centers - to pregnant woman and children under five; the two most vulnerable groups. An initiative that greatly cuts down on malaria among these two groups but not much on the disease in general.

Unlike Unicef and the others - that use LLINs as a way to protect specific target groups - we’re taking a more Panama-like approach, using the nets as a weapon against malaria. Something you can read more about here.

-Morten

If you're new here, you may want to read about the project this blog is about. Thanks for visiting!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Eradicate Malaria. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.