Long Lasting Insecticidal net to repel mosquitos launched

Panaji, Nov 3 : A Swiss-based health products research company -Vesterguiard Frandsen International today announced the launch of its WHO-approved PermaNet@3.0, considered a new generation, long-lasting insecticidal net with increased efficiency against Pyrethroid-resistant malaria vectors.

This coincides with the holding of the 2-day international symposium on vectors and vector borne diseases beginning here tomorrow. The company would present Rs 2 lakh award to Dr Devika Periera of Sri Lanka during the symposium for making significant contribution to research on vector borne diseases.

Disclosing this to mediapersons here today, the company's regional director (New Delhi) Captain Suresh Janardhanan said the product was an improved version of its earlier 2.0 series, which had been sold across the world including in India.

The governments of NorthEast and Orissa besides Goa alone had purchased 25 lakh nets as part of their committment to fight malaria and other vector borne diseases, he said.

The company, he said, had now been awaiting the approval of the new product from the Union Agriculture Ministry for its marketing.

The products had been manufactured in Vietnam and Thailand and the organisation was exploring the possibility of starting a unit in India soon, he said.

The new product avoids the drudgery of soaking the nylon nets in mosquitto repellent and associated risks and huge expenditure incurred in chemical bonding every three months, as the product could be continuously used for at least five years with success.

The mosquitto net uses a combination of Deltamethrin and a synergist along with a combination of polythylele fabric and polyester on the sides to protect the end users from susceptible and resistant vectors.

The vectors, according to WHO estimates, had been claiming an annual 300 to 500 million cases of malaria alone worldwide even as one million of them were succumbing to the disease in the developing countries, young children accouinting for the most.

He had further disclosed that the company had come out with a ''straw'' that could filter impurities in water found useful in flood hit areas. It had now been successfully introduced in defence sector.

The company, he said, had also been engaged in manufacturing innovative complex emergency rersponse and disese control products particularly usedful in dealing with the HIV/AIDS and diarrhoea.

''We are trying to achieve Millennium Development Goans'' of cutting poverty, disease and environment degradation in developing countries while developing new sproducts and improving the existing ones that fight diseases andsave lives,'' Captain Suresh added.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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