Across Kenya and much of Africa, a quiet behavioral shift is eroding one of public health's most durable defenses: on sweltering nights, millions of people are choosing breath over protection, setting aside insecticide-treated nets that trap heat as readily as they repel mosquitoes. A study spanning 28 African countries and over a million data points has given shape to what intuition long suggested — that rising temperatures correlate with a 9 to 14 percent decline in net use among women and children. Kenya has made genuine strides against malaria, cutting prevalence from 8 to 6 percent over a
Heat Threatens Kenya's Malaria Fight as Kenyans Abandon Mosquito Nets
Study estimates heat-related net non-use may have been linked to approximately 25.8 million malaria cases across 28 African countries, though researchers note this is a model-based estimate.