Prevention of Malaria : Eradicating Mosquitoes and other PESTS

This blog is a result of a funny chain reaction... Reading the news of Gaddafis death, I briefly though of George Bush, and thus re-read my earlier blog on Induced Democracies, where I had mentioned a brief gesture from George Bush on his war on Malaria.

It has always struck me as strange, that the development world spends millions on treated mosquito bed nets as a means to preventing malaria. I was re reading my blog on Induced democracy and the so called efforts made by George Bush to eradicate Malaria.

My first thoughts were :
- How much time does an African villager spend indoors in the bed ( if he has one!! )
The answer was about 4-5 hours at the most or about 20%+f the time.

- do Mosquitoes only bite at night?
This seemed to be more of a western concept of sleep discomforts. I've been bitten by mosquitoes at all times in the dAy as well as night. Yes, it's true that when we sleep, we have a lesser chance of defence, and thus the net could help for sure.

I'm not trying to criticise the efforts in reducing exposure to being bitten at night, but if an NGO or development body really needs to prevent mosquito bites, they should do so using several methods :
1. Advocating cleanliness of surroundings
2. Advocating personal hygiene
3. Advocating use of mosquito repellent creams - ideally non toxic herbal creams.
The above would cover villagers from close to 80 or 90 % of their time. The balance could be covered by the use of treated nets.

The first two points above would gradually bring about a reduction in the requirement for all other external repellants.

Till then, let's hope that now that they've got Gaddafi, they can spend a little more of their "WAR ON... budgets" on a war on malaria during daytime as well.