Cloth wraps treated with ‘dirt cheap’ insecticide cut malaria cases in babies

Soaking fabrics in a commonly used insect repellent is a simple and effective tool as mosquito bites become more common during daytime, study shows

From Africa to Latin America to Asia, babies have been carried in cloth wraps on their mothers’ backs for centuries. Now, the practice of generations of women could become a lifesaving tool in the fight against malaria.

Researchers in Uganda have found that treating wraps with the insect repellent permethrin cut rates of malaria in the infants carried in them by two-thirds.

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