Malaria is an infectious disease transmitted by mosquitoes.It is characterised by fever, chills,followed by excessive sweating . Sometimes the most severe forms of this disease can lead to death even .This is a common disease in the tropical countries.
Hence eradication of this disease involves the control of breeding of this mosquitoes and spraying insectisides.Typically, in southern Asia, villagers spray the inside of their houses with insecticide to guard against malaria.Because the mosquitoes that carry malaria in the area feed mostly on cattle, not humans, sponging down cows with insecticide is just as effective at reducing malaria infection as spraying the insides of houses.
Since DDT has largely been replaced with more expensive insecticides, home spraying has become more costly.Therefore researchers led by Dr. Mark Rowland at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine thought to treat cattle with insecticide directly and costs just one-fifth as much.
Rowland and colleagues compared the methods in six Afghan refugee settlements in Pakistan. They found that while both approaches reduced the number of cases of malaria, sponging the cattle saved the cost to around one fifth.
The study also found that in a village with a high rate of malaria, sponging was more effective against one kind of malaria, Plasmodia falciparum, than house spraying. It was also found that such methods adopted to eradicate the mosquitoes had no toxic reactions in any animals, and deltamethrin, the insecticide used, is not thought to be a hazard to consumers.
