The first order for 33,000 bed nets was made on March 28, 2007.

The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $4 bed nets to poor families.

It is easy, for instance, to talk of the importance of bed nets.

Anti-malaria bed nets have also been distributed to pregnant women and children.

Treated bed nets are indeed a useful tool for controlling malaria.

People surveyed in rural Africa about what they would like to buy listed a bed net as only the sixth product on their wish list.

Six years ago, African leaders pledged to stop putting taxes and import duties on bed nets.

If everyone in Africa had - and used - a bed net, the incidence of new malaria cases would drop to nearly nothing overnight.

And yet almost none of these children sleeps under a bed net because they are too poor.

Use of mosquito repellent and bed nets is strongly recommended.