Chicken odour 'prevents malaria' - Research 

Researchers in Ethiopia and Sweden have discovered that the smell from a live chicken could help protect against malaria. 

They say malarial mosquitoes tend to avoid chickens and other birds. 

The experiments, conducted in Western Ethiopia, included suspending a live chicken in a cage near a volunteer sleeping under a bed net.  

The researchers said the compounds from the smell of the chicken can be extracted and could work as a repellent.

The scientists, whose research was published in the Malaria Journal, concluded that as mosquitoes use their sense of smell to locate an animal they can bite there must be something in a chicken's odour that puts the insects off.  

Infection and death rates are declining but health officials are continuing to look for new ways to prevent the spread of the disease.

Last year malaria killed nearly 400,000 people in Africa. 

BBC