Malaria claims the lives of more than 400,000 people each year, primarily infants and children. The Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs’ VectorWorks worked to increase access to, and use of, insecticide-treated bed nets for malaria prevention. Treated bed nets are the single most effective tool available for reducing illness and death from malaria, accounting for 68 percent of cases prevented since 2000.
Funded by the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI), VectorWorks operated in 15 countries in Africa and Asia, each year distributing millions of bed nets, which offer protection from disease-carrying mosquitoes. Our research focuses on the best ways to distribute these nets, how people use them and how long they last. Our findings inform global policy on nets and other mosquito-control methods.
Over the course of the project, VectorWorks:
- Helped national governments distribute 47 million bed nets in three countries, Tanzania, Ghana and Guinea, though mass distribution campaigns, in schools and in health facilities.
- Maintained and updated a monthly report on bed net access and use in 44 countries.
- Published professional journal articles on net use, net durability and net distribution.
- Created extensive how-to guide in English and French on distributing nets in community, school and health-facility settings.
- Developed PMI’s standards for monitoring the durability of nets and implemented the activity in five countries.
