(Deerfield, Ill., USA – October 5, 2011) Indoor spraying with the insecticide bendiocarb has dramatically decreased malaria transmission in many parts of Benin, new evidence that insecticides remain a potent weapon for fighting malaria in Africa despite the rapid rise of resistance to an entire class of mosquito-killing compounds, according to a study published today in the October edition of The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Scientists with Benin’s Entomologic Research Center in Cotonou evaluated the effects of two applications of bendiocarb in homes throughout the West African country over an eight-month period in 2009. They found that after “indoor residual spraying” or IRS, which involves applying insecticide on walls where mosquitoes are likely to land, none of the 350,000 household members living in the treated homes “received infected bites” from the malaria-carrying mosquito Anopheles gambiae.
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