Utete, TZ – Mosquito nets keep students healthy and studying at night – 7 August 2012

In Summer 2011 students from Parmiters School in England donated mosquito nets to student studying at Utete Secondary School. The nets are still being used properly by the students in the dorms at Utete Secondary School. Some have developed smalls hole from use, but the students’ repair them using needle and thread. “We have definitely noticed a reduction in students getting sick from malaria,” says Discipline Master Selemani Mwekera. We interviewed a student named Mwichande Mtila and he told us that he can now study at night in his bunk and the mosquitoes don’t bother him. He has said that the extra study time has been extremely beneficial to his grades.

According to Doctors Without Borders mosquito nets need to be replaced every two years to maintain their effectiveness. That means that the donated mosquito nets are already half way through their life cycle. In Tanzania, it is common to use nets until they no longer keep mosquitoes out of your sleeping space and to then use the broken nets for fishing or hanging clothes. The school has not yet informed us of any plan to proactively replace the nets.