Treated bednet material (6)
---------------------------
Source: malaria@wehi.edu.au
Let us discuss how fast we can make people understand that the
insecticide is very important and therefore they have to come to
retreat their nets or buy treated nets.
Martinho,
I think to answer this question we need to answer the question:- "Why
do the man in the village need a bednet?" If my experience in Sierra
Leone is anything to go by, most people said that they used bednets
mainly for protection against mosquito bites.
Protection against malaria was often secondary, and in most people
this was just a bonus effect which they were not aware of. Majority
were not even convinced that mosquito bite causes malaria. If this is
the case, why then should they pay to have their nets treated when it
is already serving its intended purpose?
How can we get them to retreat? Since their main purpose for using
the bednet is to protect against mosquito bites, we should try to
show them that the untreated net is not good enough. What about, set-
ting up a simple experiment to show them that even when someone uses
an intact net, mosquitoes still bite if it is untreated?
Just musing
Edward Magbity
Dept. of Medical Parasitology
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Keppel Street
London WC1E 7HT
Tel: +44-171-927-2336
Fax: +44-171-636-8739
mailto:MVBEEMAG@LSHTM.AC.UK
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