Kite Patch Makes People Invisible to Mosquitoes
A major development in the fight against malaria.
Even though malaria mortality rates have dropped 25% since 2000, the disease continues to kill one child per minute in Africa. In 2010, the World Health Organisation estimated there were 219 million malaria cases worldwide, 660,000 of which resulted in death. About half the global population inhabits malaria-prone areas.
According to WHO, 'personal protection against mosquito bites represents the first line of defence for malaria prevention'. At present, the two most common methods of 'vector control' are insecticide-treated mosquito nets and indoor spraying with residual insecticides. The latter is fully effective when 80% of houses in a particular area are sprayed at three to six month intervals.
That's the equivalent to a frightening volume of toxins. Until now, though, nothing else has seemed to work.
However, a team of 'passionate professionals devoted to combatting mosquito-borne diseases worldwide' has come up with a new solution: the Kite Patch. It provides 48 hours of protection by secreting non-toxic compounds that prevent mosquitoes from detecting carbon monoxide, the main method they use to discover and target their human prey.
It's taken three years of work at Olfactor Laboratories, Inc., and three years of research at the University of California Riverside to come up with the Kite. Having received initial assistance from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the US National Institutes of Health, the team is currently running an Indiegogo campaign. Within five days, it became the crowd funding site's most popular project, reaching an initial goal of $US75,000, which will fund the provision of 20,000 Kite Patches to Pilgrim Africa, Uganda. Now, a stretch goal of $385,000 is just $60,000 short of fulfillment.
[via Gizmag]
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