'Literally millions will die' without new malaria nets market approval warns UCC academic

The Covid-19 pandemic must not all the focus to be taken away from the scourge of malaria or "literally millions" will die, a leading UCC-based disease expert has said.

Professor Gerry Killeen, the newly appointed Axa research chair of applied pathogen ecology at the School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Sciences in UCC, said the World Health Organisation (WHO) needed to advance new malaria defences to market as a matter of urgency.

Next-generation insecticide-treated nets were vital, Professor Killeen said, as he received an Axa Research Chair award worth €1m to fight malaria at UCC.

The insurance giant’’s research fund supports projects in the areas of health, environment, new tech and socio-economics.

Professor Killeen’s warning was published this week in the Lancet, a leading medical journal.

Malaria still infects hundreds of millions of people each year, transmitted through mosquitoes bites.

Currently, the most effective way to prevent it is with insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) placed over all beds and other sleeping spaces, to not only protect the human users but also kill mosquitoes attempting to attack them.

While increasingly widespread use of ITNs has achieved great reductions of malaria burden since the turn of the century, a recent WHO report has found the fight against this mosquito-borne disease stalled from 2014 onwards.

“Since the turn of the century, over four million malaria-related deaths have been averted in Africa, mostly through vector control using bed nets treated with exceptionally safe and affordable pyrethroid insecticides,” said Prof Killeen, an applied pathogen ecologist.

However, progress has stalled because of resistance of mosquitoes to insecticides has eroded the impact of ITNs, and because mosquitoes can avoid them by feeding upon animals outdoors.

A novel range of new ITN products offers new hope, he said -- but a delay in approving them could cost lives.

“Literally millions of lives will depend on whether we decide to use emerging new next generation ITN technologies for pre-emptive insecticide resistance management now, or in a biologically unsustainable reactive fashion later,” Professor Killeen wrote.

His AXA-funded research at UCC will recognise that not all mosquitoes act the same, and can adapt to their environments.