Net Benefit

Mosquitos carrying malaria cause hundreds of thousands of deaths each year. While bed nets offer some protection from night bites, soaking them in insecticide poses a risk to human health, while insects grow resistant to some 'safer' insecticides like pyrethroid. Here a surprisingly simple solution blocks female Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes as they try to feed on a human volunteer. Adding a vertical panel to a bed net – strategically positioned over the sleeper’s torso, where the insects circle – interferes with the coloured flight paths of these 25 mosquitos. Treating this top panel with insecticide – rather than the whole net – provides a safer and cheaper way to use powerful chemicals, and if adopted by the World Health Organisation, could provide widespread protection in parts of the world affected by malaria.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

Website

• image from work by Gregory P.D. Murray and colleagues
• Vector Biology Department, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Nature Microbiology, December 2019