Malaria has haunted humanity for thousands of years—its traces even found in the mummy of King Tut. Carried by mosquitoes, malaria is why these tiny insects are easily considered one of the world’s deadliest animals.
As recently as 2000, nearly 900,000 people a year—mostly children in Africa—still died from malaria. For millions more, like Dr. Corine Ngufor, entomologist stationed in Benin, malaria was a constant fact of life growing up. “My siblings and I would just keep having malaria and malaria and malaria. Just about everyone did,” she recalls.
Innovating a new mosquito net
Around 2005, malaria rates began to steadily decline thanks to a life-saving innovation: insecticide-treated bed nets. By 2015, over half the population of sub-Saharan Africa slept under these nets, and global malaria deaths had dropped significantly—by more than 50 percent.
But then, progress stalled. COVID-19 disrupted health systems, climate change caused mosquitoes to spread faster, and worst of all, mosquitoes developed resistance to pyrethroids—the standard insecticides used on bed nets.
Enter Dr. Ngufor. After obtaining her PhD, she got to work building a better mosquito net. To regain their effectiveness, these improved nets needed a new type of insecticide—one that would last through heavy rains, remain lethal to mosquitoes, and crucially, remain safe for babies sleeping beneath them.
Dr. Ngufor and her lab began testing nets treated with both pyrethroids and another insecticide called chlorfenapyr. This new insecticide attacks mosquitoes by draining their energy, leaving them sluggish, weak and unable to fly—and eventually killing them.
Unfortunately, the early results from lab tests were disappointing. “At [one] point, I thought we might have to give up,” Ngufor says. “But we also knew the options out there were few, so it was important to make sure we tried everything.”
The Interceptor G2 breakthrough
Despite the setbacks, Dr. Ngufor and her team didn’t give up. Instead, they developed new testing methods designed to better reflect real-life conditions. These improved field tests revealed something important: chlorfenapyr was, in fact, highly effective at killing mosquitoes—it simply took longer than initially expected.
The results were promising, but Dr. Ngufor and her team needed to be sure these new nets would be both safe and effective. After six years of rigorous testing and countless prototypes, they found a winner: the Interceptor G2 (IG2).
These new nets, delivered to communities with the support of partners like the Global Fund, have proven their worth. Studies in Tanzania and Benin show that dual-treated IG2 nets reduced malaria infection among children by nearly half. Another analysis found that IG2 nets prevented approximately 13 million malaria cases from 2019 to 2022, saving an estimated 25,000 lives.
Flying ahead of the mosquito
In 2023, the World Health Organization strongly recommended dual-treated bed nets over traditional ones, highlighting their potential to reignite progress against malaria. But mosquitoes don’t accept defeat easily. Dr. Ngufor is already at work testing new types of nets to stay ahead of insecticide resistance.
Dr. Ngufor and her colleagues didn’t give up when the challenge seemed overwhelming. And even now, with the success of IG2 nets, they refuse to stop innovating. “You always have to think ahead of the mosquito,” she says. They’ll keep going—until the fight against malaria is won.
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