For years, insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor spraying have fought mosquitoes that spread malaria. These methods worked well. They also killed pests like bed bugs, cockroaches, and flies.
Now, pests resist these insecticides. Bed bugs, cockroaches, and flies return. People stop trusting and using these treatments. Malaria rates rise again.
“These bed nets were great at killing household pests,”
Says Chris Hayes, a PhD student at NC State and co-author of a new study.
“People liked that, but the insecticides don’t work on these pests anymore.”
“Non-target effects are usually bad, but here they helped,” says Coby Schal, a professor and co-author of the study.
“The real value for people was killing other pests,”
Hayes adds.
“There’s a link between bed net use and resistance in house pests, especially in Africa.”
Other factors like famine, war, city vs. rural life, and population moves also raise malaria rates.
Hayes reviewed academic papers on indoor pests, malaria, bed nets, and insecticides. He found over 1,200 papers. After a careful review, he used 28 peer-reviewed studies.
Bed Nets’ Role in Malaria and Pest Control Under Review
One 2022 study in Botswana surveyed 1,000 households. It found 58% worried most about mosquitoes. Over 40% worried most about cockroaches and flies.
Hayes says a new paper showed people blame bed nets for bed bugs.
“Some evidence shows people stop using bed nets if they don’t control pests,” Hayes says.
But hope remains. “There are two solutions,” Schal says. “One is treating mosquitoes and pests separately. The other is finding new tools that target both. For example, a bed net could have a part that targets cockroaches and bed bugs.”
“If bed nets also suppress pests, people might use them more,” Schal adds.
The Blanton J. Whitmire Endowment at NC State, and grants from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development Healthy Homes program, the Department of the Army, US Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Natick Contracting Division, Ft. Detrick, Maryland, and the Triangle Center for Evolutionary Medicine funded the study.
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