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SummaryO OBJECTIVES BJECTIVES To determine the hypothetical and actual willingness of households to pay (WTP) for insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), and compare these in areas with and without previous exposure to free ITNs.M METHODOLOGY ETHODOLOGY The contingent valuation method was used to determine the willingness of the heads of 1908 randomly selected households from ®ve communities in south-east Nigeria to pay for two sizes of ITNs. Two communities previously had free access to ITNs. Validity was assessed using multiple regression analyses, and by offering ITNs for sale to 200 randomly selected people drawn from the original sample. The data was collected between March and September 1998. F FINDINGS INDINGS Most respondents were willing to pay for ITNs: Mbano (93.26%), Ugwogo (97.69%), Orba (83.24%), Alor-uno (95.37%), and Ibagwa-ani (87.34%). In multivariate analyses, WTP was signi®cantly associated with the number of people living in a household, sex of the respondent, average yearly expenditure on gifts and the type of savings scheme (P < 0.05). Some of the residences were also statistically signi®cant in the two models used, and those with prior exposure to free ITNs were negatively related to WTP. Seventy-six percent of those who were hypothetically willing to pay actually purchased them, and the WTP technique correctly predicted the choices of 80% of the respondents. C CONCLUSION ONCLUSION There was good evidence that stated WTP could be translated into actual WTP. However, peoples' perception of affordability of the nets and its link to their WTP needs further exploration. The WTP technique is a potentially valid tool for market research in healthcare, as it was able to predict the direction of actual WTP for the ITNs. The hypothetical WTP amounts could be used as guide to know either the optimal price to charge for the ITNs or the level of subsidy to introduce. keywords insecticide-treated nets, willingness to pay, Nigeria correspondence Obinna Onwujekwe,

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Summaryobjectives To determine the willingness to pay (WTP) for the retreatment of insecticide-treated nets (ITN) in four malaria holoendemic communities of Nigeria.methods Contingent valuation method. The study tool was a pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire. Randomly selected households were the study units and household heads or their representatives were interviewed by locally trained interviewers.results Most households were willing to pay for annual ITN retreatment in all four communities. The proportion of those willing to pay ranged from 79% to 91%. WTP amounts ranged from $0.05 to $5.26. The median from the aggregated data from the four communities was $0.21. Multivariate analysis showed that many explanatory variables were statistically significantly related to WTP for ITN retreatment.conclusion WTP for ITN retreatment exists. The difficulty lies in implementing this. One possibility would be a community-based ITN retreatment programme.keywords insecticide-treated nets, retreatment, mosquito, malaria, willingness to pay correspondence Obinna Onwujekwe,