Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Insecticides targeting adult mosquitoes are the main way of controlling malaria.
They work not only by killing mosquitoes, but also by repelling and irritating them. Indeed their repellent action gives valuable personal protection against biting mosquitoes. In the context of malaria control this personal protection is especially relevant when mosquitoes are infectious, whereas to protect the community we would prefer that the mosquitoes that are not yet infectious are killed so, not repelled by the insecticide.
As the infectious stage of malaria parasites increases the motivation of mosquitoes to bite, we predicted that it would also change their behavioural response to insecticides.
With two systems, a laboratory isolate of the rodent malaria Plasmodium berghei infecting Anopheles gambiae and several isolates of P. Our results suggest that, at least in the laboratory, malaria infection decreases the personal protection offered by insecticide-treated nets at the stage where the personal protection is most valuable.
Further studies must investigate whether these results hold true in the field and whether the less effective personal protection can be balanced by increased community protection. The online version of this article Indoor residual spraying IRS and insecticide-treated bednets ITNs are among the most commonly used and cost-effective control measures against malaria [ 1 ].
