SciDev.Net

Selling bednets in Cameroon

CBrahic

Malaria claims three million lives a year, mostly children in sub-Saharan Africa. Policies for controlling the disease have, over the past decade, shifted from drug and vaccine research to focusing on insecticide-treated mosquito bednets.

In this article, Jon Snow, one of Britain's most prominent journalists, reports on a recent visit to Africa, where he encountered the network of businesses — from a Tanzanian factory to multinational pharmaceutical and oil companies — mass producing long-lasting nets and creating a viable market for them in Africa.

The new nets are effective for five to seven years, unlike current nets that must be retreated with insecticide every six months.

Snow concludes that the money needed to manufacture millions of nets a year and distribute them across Africa is available. Whether this can happen, he says, will depend on the actions of African leaders.

Link to full article in The Guardian