Experimental design
Four treatment arms (‘push–pull’, ‘pull’ alone, ‘push’ alone and placebo control) were allocated in a randomised block design to 12 houses. The treatments were randomly rotated through the houses so that each house received all four treatments. Mosquito sampling was done over four consecutive nights a week and treatments were rotated on a weekly basis. For each house to receive all four treatments a complete round required four weeks. Four complete rounds and one additional week (total 17 weeks) were implemented.For the ‘push’ intervention, transfluthrin (Bayer Global, Leverkusen, Germany) emulsified concentrate (EC) of 0.2 g/ml was applied on hessian fabric to achieve a load of 2.5 g/mOdour-baited Suna traps were used as pull devices. The trap’s development, appearance and operation are described in detail elsewhereAll field workers, the community members, and the investigators implementing the mosquito identification, were blinded to the treatment allocation. The project manager (MMN) prepared the hessian fabric and nylon strips and labelled them with a unique identifier according to the treatments. She allocated the treatment to the houses using a random number generator and sent the weekly allocation information and the fabrics and strips to the field, where the site leader oversaw the installation. Houses, traps, and treatments were coded, and the code was only revealed after initial analysis