A Note of Caution on Bed Net Coverage

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Over at Malaria No More website, Ben Brophy makes the following observation:

Several malaria advocates here expressed concern about bed net coverage. 

Once universal coverage is reached, will donors think that we have finished the job? What about when the bed nets need to be replaced in 3 years – at a time when the Global Fund, as a result of the recent replenishment, will have precious few resources for new investments? 
[...]

This is a very real and pertinent observation.  It is not enough to hand out mosquito nets.  It is not enough to train people in their use.

Anyone who has ever slept under a mosquito net will tell you the nets rip and tear.  

We are well aware of this here at the Malaria Operation.  One of the keys steps in our process is coordinating the follow up visits.  

We take a GPS measurement at every house we visit. This allows us to know the exact location of the house.  We keep all this information in our Household Database.

This makes follow up visits easy to coordinate.  We can tell our volunteers go here, here and here.  They can then find the households very easily with a simple hand held GPS device.  An iPhone would work just as well!