Last Updated: 13/02/2025
Treating water bodies to control mosquito larvae with the help of Pastoralists
Objectives
The project is aimed at applying pastoralists’ knowledge to find water bodies during the dry season and accurately identify aquatic habitats that can be treated with larvicide pyriproxyfen (PPF) to render the sites unproductive to mosquitoes in rural communities of Tanzania, where malaria is mostly endemic.
The specific objectives of the project were to:
- recruit pastoralists with knowledge of local dry-season water bodies into the study;
- educate the selected pastoralists on the safety of PPF to human and animal health;
- assess the impact of the intervention on mosquito populations at aquatic habitat and household levels,
- conduct educational sessions with pastoralists and non-pastoralists communities on better animal keeping practices, with help from District Veterinary Officers.
Malaria is responsible for 21,000 deaths in Tanzania each year. In the dry season, controlling mosquito larvae (which live in water) is not workable because water bodies are hard to locate. Pastoralists (nomads who raise livestock on natural pasture) know where these water bodies are, since they rely on them to water their cattle.
The project aimed to use rural residents’ knowledge to find water bodies during the dry season and accurately identify aquatic habitats that can be treated with larvicide pyriproxyfen (PPF), to render the sites unproductive to mosquitoes in rural communities of Tanzania. Dry season mosquitoes’ aquatic habitats are good targets for intervention because, although they are few and scattered, as well as being very hard to locate, they are important in sustaining remaining mosquito populations and the associated malaria transmission. The team crowd-sourced information from rural residents who use these habitats to water their cows/animals.
This social innovation of integrating pastoralists into a malaria control strategy will enable the efficient treatment of larval hotspots in rural Africa, while improving livestock health and the economic situation of pastoralist tribes.
Oct 2014 — Jul 2016
$89,511
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