Apart from the utter sadness of being in some networks where people die every week of malaria, I would like to declare absolute ignorance about the science of the alternative solutions. That said: I want to reiterate one overarching puzzle as well as pose a question to each of the 2 most opposite contentions

the overarching puzzle is that clearly the mosquito has been (or continuously is being) defeated in some parts of the world (eg Florida) -so why cant we learn from (open source) the "service franchise" successfully used in some localitoes to defeat it everywhere

to those who advocate bed nets: this seems to assume 2 things: 1) that almost all malaria is caught by being bitten while asleep - whilst I can imagine a lot is, would you risk your life to assuming you only need protection while asleep? 2) it assumes that very poor people have sufficient nets, facilities and awareness to continually use nets (eg by facilities are we assuming people have standard size beds that nets can of particular size can be hung round?)

to those looking at the DDT solution , I wish we could put the facts down simply on the pros and cons of ddt because to a scientifically-ignorant person (me!) it seems tragic that these are not listed on one page simply - and instead different emotions are brought for and against which stop objective communal understaning. It would be really sad if over time this thread has hundreds of posts going to and fro on DDT when maybe a small group for and against could connect by email and sum up the 2 opposite sides plus any questions in one slide we could become at elast a starting point for communal consensus.

(PS I do a lot of analysis of what media says over time not article soundbite by soundbite. I have to say 99% of media coverage on malaria just adds to the emotional ingorance on the subject. I am not implying that any particular reference above is part of that 99% but please dont assume that by citing what some journalist says - looking to get people to buy an emotionally hot story - is likely to be what this thread needs as evidence. Media's inconvenient truth is a common crisis in every area that we are at risk of losing huamn sustainability - health, climate , peace etc so please dont take my lack of attention to media references as personal to opinions on this particular issue )