Page 235 - Social Marketing for Public Health Global Trends and Success Stories

57977_CH09_final.qxd:Cheng 11/5/09 4:42 PM Page 208

208 CHAPTER 9 ■ Creating a Commercial Market for Insecticide-Treated Mosquito Nets

For policy makers, the motivators were to improve the public health of their
citizenry, decrease the number of malaria cases, and reduce the amount of
health funding that was being spent on malaria treatment.
For distributors and retailers, the motivators were to add another product
line that would increase income and profit. For some, there was also the pride of
being involved in selling a life-saving product. Everyone knew someone who
had been ill or died from malaria. Once the sales of ITNs picked up, some retail-
ers felt that the ITN campaign brought more consumers into their shops—who
then bought other products.

Competition
In the marketplace, the main competitors in the insect-control category were
aerosols and coils, seen by many as modern products. They also were cheaper
per unit. Aerosols were plentiful and cost between US$2.25 and US$3.00 per can
(sufficient for two weeks), and a pack of 10 mosquito coils was US$0.75. Some
street vendors even sold single coils. For low-income families, the cost of an ITN
for US$4.50 to US$7.00 was a considerable expense that required time for
thought and saving before purchase. In 2001, the insect control market was
dominated by aerosols, with 60% of households claiming to buy an aerosol
product as their most common anti-mosquito product and 36% buying mos-
quito coils. Coil usage was higher in rural areas while aerosol usage was biased
toward urban areas (Research International, 2001).
The main competition to commercial ITNs, however, was really the free and
subsidized ITNs provided by donor and government programs. If not well man-
aged and targeted, these ITNs would undermine commercial sales. In some
cases, ITNs purchased with public sector funds “leaked” into the commercial
market and were sold at very low prices. The threat of massive free distributions
made distributors very wary of building up a large inventory of ITNs in their
warehouses and retail networks and made retailers reluctant to put the product
in their shops and see demand disappear if free or highly subsidized ITNS en-
tered their area.

P O S I TI O NIN G STATEMENT

As the host of the African Summit on Roll Back Malaria in April 2000, Nigeria
fully adopted the Abuja Declaration goal of having:
at least 60% of those at risk of malaria, particularly pregnant women and chil-
dren under five years of age, benefit from the most suitable combination of