Updates to the spatial repellent product class: Status of evidence for a WHO global policy

In combination with existing World Health Organization (WHO) recommended vector control interventions, spatial repellents have the potential to add significant protective benefit, especially where traditional strategies may not be protective, be unavailable, are impractical and/or not feasible. Control or elimination of diseases in these circumstances will require innovative approaches, and this may be where spatial repellents may be most beneficial. For example, spatial repellents have demonstrated effects against outdoor, daytime, and early-evening biting mosquitoes, targeting vectors of transmission that traditional interventions may not be completely effective against. Albeit a previous prevalence study in China, and two recent large-scale incidence evaluations in Indonesia and Peru against malaria and Aedes-borne viruses, respectively, have all indicated positive outcomes in reducing human infections, endorsement of a WHO global policy recommendation for the spatial repellent product class is still lacking due to continued gaps in evidence. The importance of a WHO policy for implementation of spatial repellents in public health programs includes not only a direct benefit to human health but also potential increase in investments and efforts to develop new generation of effective active ingredients and product formulations into the disease control/eradication arsenal. This presentation will provide an overview of the current status of the spatial repellent class within the WHO assessment pathway and ongoing large-scale epidemiological trials designed to fill evidence gaps.