Joanna Schellenberg

Country: Great Britain, born: 1962
Present occupation: Reader in Epidemiology and Global Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Field of research: Epidemiology

Supported project: Socially Marketed Treated Nets and Child Survival in Southern Tanzania (2001)

"My PhD-study was on the impact of insecticide treated mosquito nets in Tanzania, carried out at a time when the only sustainable option was for local people to pay at least part of the cost of these nets. The well-documented uptake of these nets and the resulting improvement in child survival convinced me of the utility of malaria research in sub-Saharan Africa."

Insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) have proven to be a vital tool in the fight against malaria. The project, supported by the R. Geigy-Foundation, confirmed the positive impact of mosquito nets on child mortality in an area of high malaria transmission in rural Tanzania.