Researchers have developed a new type of bed net with a specific combination of an insecticide and insect growth regulator that could prevent millions of cases of malaria.The novel net, detailed in the journal The Lancet, contains a pyrethroid insecticide, which repels and kills the mosquitoes, and an insect growth regulator, pyriproxyfen, which shortens the lives of mosquitoes and reduces their ability to reproduce.

               This new type of mosquito net reduced the number of cases of clinical malaria by 12%compared with conventional nets. There was also a 51% reduction in risk of malaria infective mosquito bite.Children using the new bed nets were 52% less likely to be moderately anaemic, which is a major cause of mortality in children under two years, the research showed.

                “This new invaluable tool would enable us to tackle more efficiently this terrible and deadly disease that affects many children ,” said principal investigator Alfred B. Tiono, from the CNRFP in Africa. The team conducted a two-year clinical trial in Burkina Faso, West Africa, involving 2,000 children, aged between six months and five years.

                           The latest figures from the World Health Organisation shows that in 2016 malaria infected about 216 million people across 91 countries, up from five million in 2015.