One Dollar Bednet from Republic of South Africa (2)
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[The following article appeared in a Malaria mailing list and might be
of interest regarding Jacques du Preez' message on AFRO-NETS yesterday.
DN Mod.]
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At last the one-dollar net ?
Source: <malaria@wehi.edu.au>
Regular readers of this listserv may remember seeing, a few months ago,
an announcement by a company claiming to make nets for a dollar each.
I asked for a sample, and it has now arrived. It is a very interesting
- not to say curious - article.
The material is not a woven or knitted yarn. It is a kind of felt tis-
sue, made of compressed polypropylene fibres (randomly aligned and
thermally bonded). It therefore does not have any holes. You can breath
through it very easily, but I'm not sure whether air movement would be
enough for comfort in a hot place. Also, it is opaque, and this may be
less acceptable for some net-users (but perhaps preferable for others).
It seems you can get various strengths and weights of this material. I
presume the sample I have been given is the "$1 net" version. Given
that it looks and feels like stiffened tissue paper, it is surprisingly
strong. But it certainly does not look as though it would be as resis-
tant to wear and tear as an ordinary net.
It's not clear to me, just by looking at it, how resistant this tissue-
like material will be to the snagging and ripping associated with un-
polished wooden beds. It looks as though it might be especially attrac-
tive to rats as nesting material (this is a common source of damage to
ordinary nets). It also looks as though it might be vulnerable to fre-
quent and vigorous washing. On the other hand, of course, it might
prove to be remarkably durable.
If experience shows that this cheap net lasts for about one year of
continuous use, this will be significant in two ways:
First it will mean that this new type of "net" is about equal in terms
of cost per year, to a conventional net (which should cost, at factory
prices, about $1 per year of effective life).
Second it would mean that the life of the net is about equal to the
life of one insecticide treatment (as long as the net is not washed ).
This would raise the prospect of using them as pre-impregnated nets
(nets that are treated at the factory and never need to be re-treated).
It might be a cost-effective means of insecticide distribution. For
more on this, see Lines J (1996) "Mosquito nets and insecticide for net
treatment: a discussion of existing and potential distribution systems
in Africa". Tropical Medicine and International Health 1 616-632).
For myself, I still have some doubts that a "net" made of this material
will prove practical - there may be problems of durability and of ac-
ceptability. But it is very pleasing to see that the aim of producing
nets cheap enough even for very poor people is being taken seriously by
manufacturers.
Professor Curtis tells me that he has asked for 25 nets to be sent to
his team in Muheza. I'm not sure if they have arrived, but when they
do, I hope that a few will be sent out for domestic use, in order to
find out how long these nets last in ordinary rural African conditions.
Curtis's team will also try treating the nets with pyrethroids.
The company can be contacted at:
<yentl@mweb.co.za> (Jacques du Preez)
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Jo Lines
mailto:jo.lines@lshtm.ac.uk
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