Data for Barrier bednets target malaria vectors and expand the range of usable insecticides

In Africa, where malaria burden is greatest, bednets treated with pyrethroid insecticide were highly effective in preventing mosquito bites and reducing transmission, and essential to achieving unprecedented reductions in malaria until 2015. Since then, progress has stalled and with insecticidal bednets losing efficacy against pyrethroid-resistant Anopheles vectors, methods that restore performance are urgently needed to eliminate any risk of malaria returning to the levels seen prior to their widespread use throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

Here we show that the primary malaria vector Anopheles gambiae is targeted and killed by small insecticidal net barriers positioned above a standard bednet, in a spatial region of high mosquito activity but zero contact with sleepers, opening the way for deploying many more insecticides on bednets than currently possible. Tested against wild pyrethroid-resistant Anopheles gambiae in Burkina Faso, pyrethroid bednets with organophosphate barriers achieved significantly higher killing rates than bednets alone.