Fink, Günther; Mrema, Sigilbert; Abdulla, Salim; Kachur, S Patrick; Khatib, Rashid; Lengeler, Christian; Masanja, Honorati; Okumu, Fredros; Schellenberg, Joanna; (2022) Mosquito Net Use in Early Childhood and Survival to Adulthood in Tanzania. New England Journal of Medicine, 386 (5). pp. 428-436. ISSN 0028-4793 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2112524
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: It has been hypothesized that in high-transmission settings, malaria control in early childhood (<5 years of age) might delay the acquisition of functional immunity and shift child deaths from younger to older ages. METHODS: We used data from a 22-year prospective cohort study in rural southern Tanzania to estimate the association between early-life use of treated nets and survival to adulthood. All the children born between January 1, 1998, and August 30, 2000, in the study area were invited to enroll in a longitudinal study from 1998 through 2003. Adult survival outcomes were verified in 2019 through community outreach and mobile telephones. We used Cox proportional-hazards models to estimate the association between the use of treated nets in early childhood and survival to adulthood, adjusting for potential confounders. RESULTS: A total of 6706 children were enrolled. In 2019, we verified information on the vital status of 5983 participants (89%). According to reports of early-life community outreach visits, approximately one quarter of children never slept under a treated net, one half slept under a treated net some of the time, and the remaining quarter always slept under a treated net. Participants who were reported to have used treated nets at half the early-life visits or more had a hazard ratio for death of 0.57 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.45 to 0.72) as compared with those who were reported to have used treated nets at less than half the visits. The corresponding hazard ratio between 5 years of age and adulthood was 0.93 (95% CI, 0.58 to 1.49). CONCLUSIONS: In this long-term study of early-life malaria control in a high-transmission setting, the survival benefit from early-life use of treated nets persisted to adulthood. (Funded by the Eckenstein-Geigy Professorship and others.).
Item Type | Article |
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Faculty and Department | Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases > Dept of Disease Control |
Research Centre |
Centre for Maternal, Reproductive and Child Health (MARCH) Malaria Centre |
PubMed ID | 35108469 |
Elements ID | 175981 |