Malaria is easily the biggest public health problem in Africa.
Some 90 percent of the world's more than 1 million deaths a year from malaria occur in Africa, but until the 1990s, control efforts were very weak, even though malaria has been getting worse and spreading. African ministers of health have already endorsed the use of the nets. The fourth study in a very malarious area of Burkina Faso is currently being analysed with results due in the summer of 1996. Villages were picked at random to receive or not to receive the nets, and followed for malaria cases for two years. Initial TDR economic analysis estimates that investment in nets would be comparable with global immunization programs for tuberculosis, measles and polio.