Department of Family Medicine - UNC School of Medicine
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Study led by UNC Family Medicine faculty shows how to reduce infant deaths.
Sylvia Becker-Dreps, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of family medicine in the UNC Department of Family Medicine is lead author of a study on insecticide-treated bed nets reducing infant deaths in Democratic Republic of Congo, published in the September 2009 issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Giving insecticide-treated bed nets to nearly 18,000 mothers at prenatal clinics in the Democratic Republic of Congo prevented an estimated 414 infant deaths from malaria, a study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers concludes.
The bed nets cost about $6 each. When costs for transporting and distributing the nets and educating people how to use them are factored in, it cost just over $411 per infant death prevented. In addition, the intervention prevented an estimated 587 low birth weight deliveries, which in turn reduced long-term disability.
“This is an extremely cost-effective intervention,” said Sylvia Becker-Dreps, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of family medicine in the UNC School of Medicine and lead author of the study, which is published in the September 2009 issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Click for full press release:
http://unchealthcare.org/site/newsroom/news/2009/September/bednets/