"LONDON -- Malaria-carrying mosquitoes in Africa and India are becoming resistant to insecticides, putting millions of lives at greater risk and threatening eradication efforts, health experts said on Tuesday."
"While existing prevention measures such as mosquito nets treated with insecticide and indoor spraying are still effective, experts said tight surveillance and rapid response strategies were needed to prevent more resistance developing.
Despite decades of efforts to beat it with insecticides, bednets and combination drugs, malaria still kills more than 650,000 people a year, most of them babies and young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
Because the disease is spread by Anopheles mosquitoes, insecticides are a vital part of controlling it.
Publishing a plan to help countries tackle the threat, the World Health Organization's global malaria program said resistance had been detected in 64 countries."
Kate Kelland reports for Reuters May 15, 2012.
SEE ALSO:
"The Mosquito Killer" (New Yorker -- 2001/Malcolm Gladwell)
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