In the efforts to fight the deadly Malaria, scientists in Tanzania have proposed the use of cow urine odour to prevent the transmission of parasites that transmit the deadly disease.

The proposal was submitted by six scientists, among them from Tanzania and outside the country including Dr. Nicodem Govella, Godfrey Katusi, Samwely Makayula from Ifakara Health Institute, also Dr. Ladislaus Mnyone from the Sokoine University of Agriculture, and Professor Richard Ignel and Dr. Sharon Hill both from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

The research indicates that for many years Tanzania has lacked effective ways to study and prevent mosquitoes from spreading malaria. The research to use cow urine odour as a means to prevent the spread of malaria was held for five years.

A dose of the medicine was placed on different traps and distributed to 20 separate locations, whereas 1568 mosquitos were trapped, among them 783 anopheles and 785 Culicinae.

Amongst the population of the mosquitos trapped where 41.6% were anopheles, 58.3% of the total anopheles were discovered carrying malaria parasites.

The research also revealed that one group of female mosquitos, Anopheles arabiensis were trapped 1.5 meters from people’s households and others were trapped 5 meters from people’s households.

Malaria remains one of the deadliest diseases in Tanzania. According to WHO, last year Tanzania was among 10 countries in the world with the high number of malaria deaths and patients, which was equivalent to 3% of global patients and 4.1% of global deaths.