Read more:http://www.ihealthng.com/2016/07/chickens-could-protect-against-malaria.html?m=1

According to a new research, chicken emit odors that deter mosquitoes from feeding on them.
The researchers investigated what species the mosquito Anopheles arabiensis preferred based on the odors emitted because mosquitoes primarily use their sense of smell in order to select their host species.
The researchers first gathered data on potential host species (cattle, chickens and humans) in three villages in Ethiopia (Wama Kusaye, Baka-Bora and Machara) and also collected blood-fed mosquitoes from inside and outside houses in those three villages and analyzed the sources of the blood so as to find out which species they had fed on.
The team found that the mosquitoes preferred human blood over animal blood when looking for host indoors and cattle, goats, and sheep when outdoors. But the researchers found they avoid chickens both indoors and outdoors.
The researchers in a bid to assess the odor to which mosquitos are attracted to, collected different samples (hair, wool, and feathers) from host and non-host species and applied the identified odor compounds to mosquito traps which were installed in 11 houses in one of the villages for 11 days.
In each of the houses, one person slept under a bed net that had not been treated with mosquito repellant.
The researchers found out that fewer mosquitoes were caught in traps laced with odor compounds from chicken feathers compared with traps that had been laced with odor compounds from cattle and other host species.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were around 214 million malaria cases across the globe last year and approximately 438,000 deaths from the disease.
Sub-Saharan Africa which has the highest malaria burden accounted for 89 percent of malaria cases and 91 percent of malaria deaths in 2015.
The researchers are now to focus on using the isolated chicken odors to formulate a mosquito repelling product with WHO guidelines.