Malaria is a life-threatening disease caused by parasites transmitted to people through the bites of infected mosquitoes. Approximately half of the world’s population is at risk of malaria: in 2017, 87 countries and territories suffered from ongoing malaria transmission.i The World Health Organisation (WHO) only declared Europe malaria free as recently as 2016,ii nevertheless it is important to prevent its return. Zika virus, dengue fever and yellow fever are other examples of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes belonging to the genus Aedes; for all these diseases, a vaccine is not yet available or is under clinical trials; therefore, WHO affirms that prevention control is the main way to reduce their spreading, and the use of insecticides constitutes one of the key measures.iii
Insecticidal paints were shown to have comparable performances with respect to other forms of effective vector control, with advantages from several points of view, such as economic, practical and environmental.iv The active ingredients of all WHO-recommended vector controls come from only four classes of insecticides: pyrethroids, organochlorines, organophosphates and carbamates.v We selected pyrethroids as our test insecticide because these compounds are the safest for public health use from both a human and an environmental point of view.vi,vii
The topic of the ChiPyrNMR project has been the analysis of chiral pyrethroids aiming at understanding, controlling and improving their stability in complex matrices like paint. NMR spectroscopy was selected as main analytical technique because it allows to investigate in-situ interaction and degradation phenomena at a molecular levelviii and it is already largely employed in paint characterization.ix
