Malaria Must Go

Malaria is a disease transmitted through the bites of infected mosquitoes, which if not treated promptly can cause a severe illness that is often fatal.

“Every year, more than 500 million people become severely ill with malaria, and one child dies every 30 seconds from its effects,“ said Katie Taylor and Andrew Stordy, the team behind Malaria Must Go – a solution designed to improve life for the millions of people who contract the disease each year.

Malaria Must Go bolsters the fight against malaria with a multi-pronged attack. The ‘Linda’ device is a baited mosquito killer that attracts mosquitoes using CO2 and foot odour, and the modified kerosene lamps vaporize oil to repel mosquitoes. These combine with existing interventions, such as long-life insecticide-treated bed nets to increase protection against malaria, and support for current anti-malaria programs.

“The solutions were developed by completely immersing ourselves in the problem at hand,” explained the designers. “We collaborated with experts at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who enabled us to travel to Tanzania to better understand the problem from the perspective of different stakeholders.”

Throughout the design process the designers were conscious of the wider socio-economic impact their device might have in a developing country.

“We aimed to create products that could be made in the local community, creating jobs for some of those affected by the disease,” they said. “Linda would be manufactured as a product-line extension for a bed-net factory located near end-users and our modified kerosene lamps would be made by local artisans.”

Linda and the modified lamps have the potential to have an enormous impact on the communities that use them. Reducing the number of mosquitoes is proven to greatly reduce malaria cases. Communities with effective malaria control measures in place have more people able to work at any one time, more children who survive to adulthood, and less need to spend money on expensive medicines.