Last night Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged Britain would supply 20 million bed-nets to aid the fight against malaria.
Appearing on U.S. show ‘American Idol’, he urged governments
and donors to supply aid for 120 million bed-nets to be supplied to malaria-hit
countries.
Is this the best way to deal with malaria and thus should
governments be channelling vast amounts of aid at bed-nets? Are bed-nets really
the way to ‘end this killer disease’?
Research suggests not. In Chapter 6 of ‘Fighting the
Diseases of Poverty’* authors such as Jason Urbach from Africa Fighting Malaria
argue there are far more effective means of fighting malaria.
UN-led programmes against malaria have failed due to the
withdrawal of DDT for indoor residual spraying and are overstating the value of
bed-nets. Bed-nets require regular retreatment, do not guarantee protection and
are often simply not used.
Furthermore, a chapter in a report from the Civil Society
Coalition of Climate Change (pages 28-36) examines the causes of malaria and means of prevention.
The chapter is written by Paul Reiter, Director of the
Insects and Infectious Diseases Unit of the Institut Pasteur and global
consultant on insect-borne diseases. Reiter covers the conditions in which
malaria thrives, mainly relating to agricultural and economic development
(rather than, as often misconceived, climate change).
* Fighting the Diseases of Poverty can be purchased here.
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