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An Epidemiological Model of the Effects of Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets on Malaria Transmission
Insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) have become a central tool for malaria control because they provide personal and community-wide protection through their repellent and insecticidal properties. Here we propose a model that allows to assess the relative importance of those two effects in different...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4670222/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26636568 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144173 |
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author | Birget, Philip L. G. Koella, Jacob C. |
author_facet | Birget, Philip L. G. Koella, Jacob C. |
author_sort | Birget, Philip L. G. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) have become a central tool for malaria control because they provide personal and community-wide protection through their repellent and insecticidal properties. Here we propose a model that allows to assess the relative importance of those two effects in different epidemiological contexts and we show that these two levels of protection may oppose each other. On the one hand, repellency offers personal protection to the users of ITNs. The repellent action, however, is a two-edged sword, for it diverts infectious mosquitoes to non-users, thereby increasing their risk. Furthermore, with increasing ITN coverage, the personal protection effect of repellency decreases as mosquitoes are forced to perform multiple feeding attempts even on ITN users. On the other hand, the insecticidal property, which offers community-wide protection by killing mosquitoes, requires that mosquitoes contact the insecticide on the ITN and is thus counteracted by the repellency. Our model confirms that ITNs are an effective intervention method by reducing total malaria prevalence in the population, but that there is a conflict between personal protection, offered by repellency, and community-wide protection, which relies on the ITN’s insecticidal properties. Crucially, the model suggests that weak repellency allows disease elimination at lower ITN coverage levels. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4670222 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46702222015-12-10 An Epidemiological Model of the Effects of Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets on Malaria Transmission Birget, Philip L. G. Koella, Jacob C. PLoS One Research Article Insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) have become a central tool for malaria control because they provide personal and community-wide protection through their repellent and insecticidal properties. Here we propose a model that allows to assess the relative importance of those two effects in different epidemiological contexts and we show that these two levels of protection may oppose each other. On the one hand, repellency offers personal protection to the users of ITNs. The repellent action, however, is a two-edged sword, for it diverts infectious mosquitoes to non-users, thereby increasing their risk. Furthermore, with increasing ITN coverage, the personal protection effect of repellency decreases as mosquitoes are forced to perform multiple feeding attempts even on ITN users. On the other hand, the insecticidal property, which offers community-wide protection by killing mosquitoes, requires that mosquitoes contact the insecticide on the ITN and is thus counteracted by the repellency. Our model confirms that ITNs are an effective intervention method by reducing total malaria prevalence in the population, but that there is a conflict between personal protection, offered by repellency, and community-wide protection, which relies on the ITN’s insecticidal properties. Crucially, the model suggests that weak repellency allows disease elimination at lower ITN coverage levels. Public Library of Science 2015-12-04 /pmc/articles/PMC4670222/ /pubmed/26636568 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144173 Text en © 2015 Birget, Koella http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Birget, Philip L. G. Koella, Jacob C. An Epidemiological Model of the Effects of Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets on Malaria Transmission |
title | An Epidemiological Model of the Effects of Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets on Malaria Transmission |
title_full | An Epidemiological Model of the Effects of Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets on Malaria Transmission |
title_fullStr | An Epidemiological Model of the Effects of Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets on Malaria Transmission |
title_full_unstemmed | An Epidemiological Model of the Effects of Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets on Malaria Transmission |
title_short | An Epidemiological Model of the Effects of Insecticide-Treated Bed Nets on Malaria Transmission |
title_sort | epidemiological model of the effects of insecticide-treated bed nets on malaria transmission |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4670222/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26636568 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144173 |
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