Timeline of mosquito net distribution

Abstract

Human societies have been utilizing mosquito nets as a method of protection against mosquitoes and the diseases transmitted by them for centuries, traces of such use going back to ancient Egypt and Japan. In the 20th century, the use of nets was further advanced by the advent of insecticides, first combined with nets during World War II and later used for malaria control in the 1970s and 80s. Additionally, in the 1990s, insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) became a priority component of global and national malaria control policies and saw a massive increase in distribution throughout the 2000s. Consequently, by the end of the first decade of the 21st century, more than half of the households in sub-Saharan Africa owned at least one ITN, which contributed to a significant decline in malaria incidences. – AI-generated abstract.