SUCCESS STORIES

Stopping Mosquitoes before the Bite

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In Tanzania’s largest city of Dar es Salaam, a worker with the Urban Malaria Control Program straps what looks like a lawnmower engine connected to plastic tubing onto his back and saunters confidently alongside a drained sewage pond. He grips the cylindrical end of tubing, aims it toward the stagnant water, and with a crank of the engine, yellow granules rain like confetti from this one-of-a-kind contraption.

His is not a glamour job, but it is important. The tiny granules are larvacide, which kills mosquitoes at their breeding sites, long before they can bite and spread malaria. The “blowers” worn on the backs of local workers spreads the larvacide on the most difficult terrain, like large drained swamps and septic reservoirs.

“Larval control on this scale has never been done before, so when we started the program we all did it with our fingers crossed,” said Khadija Kannady, manager of the Urban Malaria Control Project, which is funded by PMI. “Then we saw an almost immediate reduction in larval density in most areas.”

After carefully mapping neighborhoods down to the street level, Kannady and her team recruited more than 300 staff - primarily local people - to daily demolish the breeding sites mosquitoes love most – pit latrines, soakage pits, all sizes and shapes of standing water. By using different types of larvacide and techniques, the teams covered large swaths of the city, with about 130,000 people benefiting in their first year.

“We have all sees the teams coming once a week for a long time now,” said Abdullah Museru, a longtime resident of Mwananyamala ward. “Mosquitoes have been reduced here very much and so has malaria.”

Studies conducted in targeted areas one year into the program showed a 66% decline in Plasmodium falciparum infections, the parasite that causes malaria, along with a 20% reduction in transmission, measured in bites per night.

Kannady attributes the success to the commitment and consistent neighborhood-level larval control teams.

“So much regular follow up is necessary in this work because if you don’t do it, you see mosquitoes back flying around again right away,” she said.

Not only do Urban Malaria Control Program efforts target the larva of the malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquitoes, but every type of mosquito, infectious or not, which proved to have positive impact on community perception and acceptance of the project.

“I don’t know what it is those doing with those machines strapped on their backs, but it’s working,” said Museru.