[ti:Spray Shows Promise in Malaria Study in Benin] [ar:Christopher Cruise] [al:Health Report] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English Health Report. [00:04.07]Malaria is caused by a parasite spread [00:07.94]through the bite of infected mosquitoes. [00:10.87]The World Health Organization, [00:13.30]in its latest estimate, says the disease [00:17.00]caused seven hundred eighty-one thousand deaths [00:20.33]in two thousand nine. [00:21.96]Most of those deaths were in children in Africa. [00:26.90]Worldwide there were two hundred twenty-five [00:30.63]million cases of malaria. [00:33.19]Both of these numbers represent improvements. [00:37.40]In two thousand there were an estimated [00:40.91]two hundred thirty-three million cases of malaria [00:44.24]and almost a million deaths. [00:47.37]Malaria remains a major problem in Africa, [00:51.78]but there have been some successes. [00:54.29]Deaths in Rwanda, for example, [00:57.85]have been reduced by sixty percent. [01:00.63]There are still no vaccines to prevent malaria. [01:05.98]The main way for communities to control the disease [01:10.16]is by controlling mosquitoes. [01:13.61]In a recent study, researchers in West Africa have shown [01:19.12]that spraying insecticide indoors [01:21.63]can greatly reduce malaria transmission. [01:25.98]The fight against malaria has two main targets: [01:30.18]the parasite itself [01:32.53]and the mosquito that carries the parasite. [01:36.28]Insecticides target the mosquito. [01:39.67]But over time the insects develop resistance to the chemicals. [01:45.47]This has been happening with current mosquito killers, [01:49.20]including chemicals known as pyrethroids. [01:52.94]Gil Germain Padonou and other researchers [01:57.39]at the Center de Recherche Entomologique de Cotonou in Benin [02:02.89]tested another insecticide. [02:07.21]This one is called bendiocarb. [02:10.23]They tested it with indoor spraying at sites throughout Benin. [02:15.74]There were fewer mosquito bites in homes sprayed with bendiocarb. [02:22.19]More importantly, none of the three hundred fifty-thousand people [02:27.36]who lived there got malaria-infected mosquito bites during the test. [02:32.89]Peter Hotez heads the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, [02:39.49]which published the research. [02:41.60]PETER HOTEZ: "And this is what this bendiocarb is all about, [02:45.21]showing that it's efficacious -- at least in this setting in Benin, [02:49.06]in a real, live field setting. [02:50.97]So it provides a potentially good alternative [02:55.20]where there's been high development of resistance to pyrethroids." [02:58.62]Dr. Hotez says the effectiveness in the test does not mean [03:02.95]all malaria programs should use bendiocarb, [03:06.23]or that indoor spraying should be the only method used. [03:10.70]PETER HOTEZ: "When we think about a large-scale goal to take on malaria, [03:14.81]it's not an either/or situation. [03:17.10]We're going to have to throw multiple things out there [03:19.79]in order to see what the optimal combination is to achieve control." [03:23.64]Bendiocarb is widely used against a number of different insects. [03:28.26]The insecticide is considered relatively safe when used as directed. [03:33.92]It has not been shown to cause cancer, [03:36.99]and it passes quickly out of the bodies of humans and other mammals. [03:42.29]The study from Benin appears [03:44.87]in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. [03:49.51]And that's the VOA Special English Health Report, [03:53.42]at 51voa.com. [03:56.62]I'm Christopher Cruise.