Comments on: One hand waving

By: Fish Face

Fish Face — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:15:32 +0000

Hey – was hanging the nets a problem? I’ve always found the nets with 4 or 6 fixings slightly tricky due to locating suitable attachment points on the ceiling/roof space. Was hardware included?

Anyway, a worthy cause indeed and I’m so glad you were able to participate in the distribution of so many nets.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:08:14 +0000

Hi Adam – thanks for commenting. I totally agree – getting people to sleep under them in the long-term appears to be a huge challenge. Many are used to sleeping without. Your comment as to mesh size and insecticide effectiveness is the first I’ve heard. There does need to be a local solution in the long-term, rather than using nets made in China/Vietnam. What left me most disheartened is the shear number of children in all of these villages – there is very little control. Negativity aside, nets do help, but it requires big changes in many other developmental spheres to lift this country and many others in Africa out of poverty.

By: Adam P

Adam P — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:50:36 +0000

Hi Peter, we have not met, but you know Helen from Cambodia etc. I really enjoyed reading your piece from Guinea to Freetown, where as you know I lived and worked for a while. Your observations are accurate and very well described and illustrated.

On bed nets – a problem is to get kids (and adults) to sleep under them when it is very hot (most of the time) and they live in shacks of corrugated iron like ovens. The children of woman who worked for us in our house constantly had malaria and she said she could not get them to sleep under nets when it is hot and airless.

I am told that the insecticide used to treat the nets is effective even when there are quite large holes in a net. If this is so why are the nets made of suffocatingly small mesh material? If the insecticide only needs some material on which to be absorbed and emit its deterrent or mosquito-killing action then why not use a much larger mesh through which breeze can pass and people be able to sleep under? Even a fan will not push air through the nets – it just pushes the net onto the “sleepers”.

I have raised this with a few “experts” and no one has an answer to the conundrum. In SE Asia where house walls are often made of bamboo, rattan or other absorbent material, the walls are simply sprayed with the insecticide, and this works, apparently. Is frica drawing the short straw as usual – pardon the pun – and victim to partially researched and verified solutions that provide income for manufacturers and development agencies?

…Hope the rest of your journey goes well. Greet Ros and co if you see them in Liberia.

Adam

By: David Piper

David Piper — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:11:07 +0000

great picture painted in words. thank you