Spray Shows Promise in Malaria Study in Benin

30 November 2011

A baby receives an injection of an experimental malaria vaccine in the Kenya coastal town of Kilifi

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

Malaria is caused by a parasite spread through the bite of infected mosquitoes. The World Health Organization, in its latest estimate, says the disease caused seven hundred eighty-one thousand deaths in two thousand nine. Most of those deaths were in children in Africa. Worldwide there were two hundred twenty-five million cases of malaria.

Both of these numbers represent improvements. In two thousand there were an estimated two hundred thirty-three million cases of malaria and almost a million deaths.

Malaria remains a major problem in Africa, but there have been some successes. Deaths in Rwanda, for example, have been reduced by sixty percent.

There are still no vaccines to prevent malaria. The main way for communities to control the disease is by controlling mosquitoes.

In a recent study, researchers in West Africa have shown that spraying insecticide indoors can greatly reduce malaria transmission.

The fight against malaria has two main targets: the parasite itself and the mosquito that carries the parasite. Insecticides target the mosquito. But over time the insects develop resistance to the chemicals. This has been happening with current mosquito killers, including chemicals known as pyrethroids.