Technical consultation on physical integrity and durability of insecticide treated nets: meeting report, 6 August 2025

This meeting report presents the outcomes of a World Health Organization technical consultation held in August 2025 to examine methods for assessing the physical integrity and durability of insecticide-treated nets and their implications for policy and practice. It outlines the consultation’s objectives, including evaluating the weighted resistance-to-damage (wRD) score as a predictor of field durability, assessing the role of a risk index (RI) in capturing social and environmental influences on net lifespan, and exploring how performance metrics can inform procurement decisions.

The report describes evidence linking wRD scores to field survival, discusses the complementary role of the RI in explaining contextual variability, and examines pathways for integrating these metrics into value-based procurement strategies. It identifies methodological and implementation challenges, including issues of standardization, validation and alignment with insecticidal efficacy. Intended for malaria programme managers, procurement specialists and policy-makers, the report highlights how combining durability metrics with contextual data can support more efficient resource allocation and improved malaria control outcomes, while outlining priorities for further research, validation and operational guidance.