Study sites

Three districts in three ecologically different provinces were purposively selected as the study sites based on timing of campaigns, malaria epidemiology, and environmental factors. Angoche district (Nampula province) is a coastal district located in the Northern region with high malaria transmission and has a population of 347,176 (based on the 2017 census). Changara district (Tete province) is located inland in the Central region with moderate to high malaria transmission and has a population of 123,056. Jangamo district (Inhambane province), located in the Southern region with moderate to high malaria transmission, is coastal and has a population of 105,306. Climate and ecology differ in the three sites. Temperatures are higher in the north and humidity higher in the coastal region. Throughout the country, the rainy season is from November to April, and average annual rainfall is around 1000 mm in Nampula, 800 mm in Inhambane and 650 mm in Tete. All three districts are mainly agricultural with subsistence farming and some fishing in the coastal communities in Angoche and Jangamo. The mass campaign for which this durability monitoring was carried out was undertaken in Tete in May 2015 using the MAGNet^® LLIN brand and in Inhambane and Nampula in October 2015, both distributing the Royal Sentry^® LLIN brand. An additional LLIN mass campaign was carried out in Nampula in September/October 2016. In addition, all sites were included in the national 2017 LLIN mass campaign which took place between the 24- and 36-month surveys in all three sites (Fig. 1).

Location of study sites and tested LLIN brands within Mozambique