NORTH-EAST academics have made important recommendations on the most effective way to protect African children against malaria.

There were an estimated 207 million cases of malaria and 627,000 deaths worldwide, mostly African children, in 2012.

The findings by a team from Durham University, working with the Medical Research Council in The Gambia, West Africa, should encourage donors to invest their resources in a more cost-effective way.

The Durham academics found that there is no need to spray insecticide on walls for malaria control when people sleep under insecticide treated bed nets.

This conclusion was reached after the Durham team studied 8,000 children in 96 villages over two years.

They found that use of insecticide sprayed on internal walls, when combined with insecticide-treated bed nets in homes, does not protect children from malaria any more effectively than using just treated nets.

The Durham researchers said this was important as both approaches are used together in many places.

As a result the researchers recommend that DDT is not used for spraying on walls in areas where there is high use of long-lasting insecticide nets and low numbers of malaria cases.

For the moment, the Durham scientists have said that every effort should be made to make sure there is a higher use of bed nets rather than spraying insecticide.

With bed nets costing just over two American dollars per person, compared with indoor spraying costing nearly seven dollars, the savings are significant.

Professor Steve Lindsay, from Durham University’s school of biological and biomedical sciences, said: “Our advice is that high bed net coverage is sufficient to protect people against malaria in areas of low or moderate transmission.

"However, where net coverage is low, the cost-effectiveness of additional control using indoor residual sprays such as DDT should be considered.”