Malaria kills more than half a million children under age 5 every year. At the same time, progress against malaria has slowed as malaria-carrying mosquitoes increasingly bite outdoors and during the day, when children may not be protected by bed nets, indoor spraying, or other existing interventions.
Across Africa and other malaria-endemic regions, mothers commonly carry young children on their backs using cloth baby wraps. Lesu is working to transform these everyday fabrics into life-saving malaria prevention tools through insecticide treatment.
Our research in Uganda showed that permethrin-treated baby wraps reduced malaria infections in young children by two-thirds and reduced malaria-related hospitalizations by more than 50%.
Lesu Director of Research Dr. Ross Boyce discussing our work.
A landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, led by Lesu’s Director of Research Ross Boyce, MD and Board Director Edgar Mulogo, PhD demonstrated:
reduction in malaria incidence among children carried in treated wraps
reduction in malaria-related hospitalizations
Strong community acceptance and high utilization
No significant adverse events
Pyrethroid insecticides have been widely used for decades in malaria prevention interventions, including insecticide-treated bed nets, and have been shown to be both safe and effective. Applied to baby wraps, this intervention can save hundreds of thousands of children’s lives over the next decade.
Unlike many malaria interventions that target indoor biting or require major behavioral changes, insecticide-treated baby wraps build on an already widespread cultural practice that moves with the child.
This creates the potential for:
Soaking fabrics in a commonly used insect repellent is a simple and effective tool as mosquito bites become more common during daytime, study shows. From
The mosquito-borne disease kills around 610,000 people each year – the vast majority of them children under five across the continent Treating baby wraps with
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Insecticide-treated bed nets keep mosquitoes from biting at night, but what how do you protect babies when they’re out and about? One researcher had an