I just wrote a brief history of HealthBridge's work in malaria control. It should appear on our main malaria page before long, but you might not come across it there. So, to misquote Shaw: I will quote myself. It adds spice to my blog.

Malaria is an infectious disease, transmitted by mosquitoes. Although malaria is preventable, there are approximately 250 million malaria cases per year, and despite treatment being effective when delivered promptly and correctly, treatment is not available to most populations at risk of malaria and it results in almost 1 million deaths per year. The large majority of the cases occur in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and among women and children. Approximately 20% of all childhood deaths in Africa are caused by malaria and the average child has between 1 and 5 malaria episodes per year.

HealthBridge`s efforts have focused on effective preventive measures, particularly insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) and, more recently, long lasting insecticidal nets. These nets are hung over beds and prevent biting while sleeping. Since most of the bites take place at dawn and dusk, sleeping under a net greatly reduces the incidence of malaria. If most children (>75%) sleep under a bednet, child mortality rates will be reduced by ~17%. For every 1000 children covered by nets, 5.5 lives are saved per year. As a result, ITNs have been adopted as a key malaria control strategy in all SSA countries.

HealthBridge has been working with governments, UN agencies, NGOs, universities, hospitals and health-care providers and private partners to improve bednet coverage since the early 1990s when ITNs were first being recommended for wide-scale use as a public health intervention. At the time we worked on net introduction, supply and distribution issues, and how to improve net retreatment. Until the early 2000s, the ITNs needed to be retreated every six months in order to retain their insecticidal activity. Ensuring high levels of retreatment was a challenge. With the introduction of long lasting nets, LLINs, in the 2000s has made our work somewhat easier. Most of these nets are produced in Africa and last for three to seven years without requiring retreatment. Most of our work now is evaluating how the nets are being used and how rates of use can be increased.

While there is some optimism about the development of an effective malaria vaccine, LLINs will likely remain a key malaria control tool for years to come. And not just for Africans: HealthBridge also promotes the use of insecticide-treated nets toprotect Canadian travelers from malaria and to raise awareness of the global burden of the disease.