With the launch this week of a VectorWorks website in the run-up to World Malaria Day, the CCP-led project’s bounty of resources and research updates are now readily available in a central archive.

The VectorWorks website “introduces the project and what we’re working on and the six countries where we’re working presently,” says CCP Senior Program Officer Hannah Koenker.  The website is also a clearing house where visitors can find a variety of useful information. “A lot of our existing resources — checklists, distribution guides, instructive videos and other materials —will be accessible in a more user-friendly format instead of scattered across several of our online toolkits,” Koenker says.

Funded by USAID under the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), VectorWorks builds on the work of the NetWorks project to test and improve mechanisms for delivering insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) at scale to reach and sustain universal coverage and to promote their consistent use.

VectorWorks also expands in scope from a focus on bed nets to address emerging challenges such as outdoor biting mosquitoes and pyrethroid resistance. Starting soon, quarterly updates will be posted on the VectorWorks website that track research on alternative vector control tools, such as durable wall liners, indoor and outdoor spatial repellants, attractive sugar bait systems and eave tubes; a device installed between the roof and walls of a home to trap and kill mosquitos.

“It’s an exciting time in vector control,” Koenker says. “We’re at a point where we know a lot about ITNs, and we know a lot about how to get them out to people and get them used. We have completed a lot of work on how long they’re lasting, which has significant implications for planning subsequent distributions.”

As this information all comes together, Koenker says, “It will point us in a direction where we’ll be able to do much more targeted activities to get nets to the right people and to replace them at the right times.”