News at a glance: Modernizing bed nets, IDing a Solar System visitor, and health lessons from Beethoven ’s hair

PUBLIC HEALTH Next-gen bed nets get go-ahead A new type of malaria-fighting bed net received a major endorsement from the World Health Organization (WHO) last week. The net combines two chemicals to more effectively kill the mosquitoes that transmit the parasite behind malaria, a disease that killed an estimated 619,000 people in 2022, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa. Insecticide-treated bed nets have helped drive malaria rates down dramatically. But in recent years, resistance to the insecticide used to treat nets, pyrethroid, has been spreading. That has contributed to the rebound of malaria in many places. The new nets are treated with pyrethroid and a second chemical called chlorfenapyr. It is a relatively new insecticide that targets the insects’ muscles, preventing them from moving. The new nets are more expensive, but two large studies found the extra killing power seems to pay off, reducing the incidence of malaria in children by nearly half compared with pyrethroid-only nets. That prompted WHO on 14 March to strongly recommend their use in regions where pyrethroid resistance has spread. VACCINES Polio cases tied to new vaccine The Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) reported last week that seven African children, six in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and one in Burundi, were recently paralyzed by strains of poliovirus derived from a new version of the Albe...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news