THE SMELL FROM LIVE CHICKEN COULD HELP PREVENT MOSQUITOE BITES
Research has shown that the smell from a live chicken could help protect against malaria. Ethiopian and Swedish scientists found out that malarial mosquitoes tend to avoid chickens and other birds. The experiments, conducted in western Ethiopia, included suspending a live chicken in a cage near a volunteer sleeping under a bed net. According to UN Last year alone malaria killed nearly 400,000 people in Africa. Infection and death rates are declining but health officials are continuing to look for new ways to prevent the spread of the disease. The malaria parasite, which initially hides in the liver before going into the bloodstream, is carried from person to person by mosquitoes when they drink blood. The scientists, whose research was published in the Malaria Journal, concluded that as MOSQUITOES make use of their sense of smell to locate an animal they can bite there must be something in a chicken’s odour that puts the insects off. Addis Ababa University’s Habte Tekie, who wo