Kampala, Uganda — Treating everyday baby-carrying cloths with the insecticide permethrin lowered infant malaria episodes by about two-thirds during a six-month trial in western Uganda, researchers announced this week.
The study enrolled 400 mother-infant pairs in Kasese district, where transmission is high. Half kept their usual cotton wraps, locally called esus, dipped only in water, while the other half received identical cloths re-treated monthly with 0.
5 percent permethrin.
All families continued using standard bed nets. Weekly clinic checks recorded new malaria cases; the treated-wrap group showed 0.
73 cases per 100 infants each week against 2.
14 in the control arm, a reduction officials described as “statistically significant. ” No serious side-effects were reported.
Mild skin irritation rose marginally — from six percent to eight percent—but no participant withdrew, according to trial records published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Investigators say the approach targets day — biting mosquitoes, increasingly common as vectors adapt to night-time nets. “Before households go indoors for the night, babies are still on their mothers’ backs in the kitchen yard.
This gives them a low — cost shield,” said co-lead investigator Edgar Mugema Mulogo of Mbarara University of Science and Technology.
Permethrin is already approved for uniforms, nets, and topical creams. With generic concentrate, each cloth treatment cost less than 35 United States cents for the entire season.
Mothers in focus groups welcomed the wraps but asked how monthly re — dipping would be financed once the study ended.
Environmental observers note downstream runoff will need monitoring, though authors argue volumes are “negligible” compared with agricultural insecticide use.
The Uganda Ministry of Health and a World Health Organization technical unit have requested a replication trial covering multiple districts and a longer follow — up to gauge effects on deaths, hospital admissions, and drug consumption.
Funding for that phase has yet to be secured. Further details are expected once grant proposals are reviewed later this year.
*Additional reporting by ImNews | Sources consulted: 5*
