Mosquito nets

A mosquito net offers protection against mosquitos,flies, and other insects, and thus against the diseases they may carry. Examples include malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, and various forms of encephalitis, including the West Nile virus. To be effective the mesh of a mosquito net must be fine enough to exclude such insects without reducing visibility or air flow to unacceptable levels. It is possible to increase the effectiveness of a mosquito net greatly by treating it with an appropriate insecticide or mosquito repellant.

The usage of mosquito netting is mainly used for the protection against the malaria transmitting vector, Anopheles gambiae. The first record of malaria-like symptoms occurred as early as 2700 BCE from China. The vector for this disease was not identified until 1880 when Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran identified mosquitos as a vector for malaria.

Mosquito netting has a long history. Though use of the term dates from the mid-18th century, Indian literature from the late medieval period has references to the usage of mosquito nets in ritual Hindu worship. Poetry composed by Annamayya, the earliest known Telugu musician and poet, references domatera, which means mosquito net in Telugu. Use of mosquito nets has been dated to prehistoric times. It is said that Cleopatra, the last active pharaoh of Ancient Egypt, also slept under a mosquito net. Mosquito nets were used during the malaria-plagued construction of the Suez Canal.

Mosquito netting can be made from cotton, polyethylene, polyester, polypropylene, or nylon. A mesh size of 1.2 mm stops mosquitoes, and smaller, such as 0.6 mm, stops other biting insects such as biting midges/no-see-ums.

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