Africa - The odour of stinky socks is repulsive to humans, but an African inventor has discovered it's as sweet and seductive as roses to mosquitoes.
Canadian tax dollars are helping a young Tanzanian scientist build a sophisticated mosquito trap that is poised to play a major role in the global war on malaria.
Fredros Okumu received a $775,000 US grant Wednesday from Grand Challenges Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“This project is a bold idea, one that's creative, innovative and counterintuitive,” says Grand Challenges Canada CEO Dr. Peter Singer. “Who could have thought a lifesaving technology could be lurking in your laundry basket?”
The trap uses chemicals that mimic human foot odour to draw mosquitoes inside a shuttered box, about the size of a garbage can. Once inside, the mosquitoes are poisoned by a powerful insecticide.
“We use a synthetic attractant to mimic a real human being,” Okumu told Postmedia News from Tanzania. “Mosquitoes go in thinking it's a human being, but they don't find any blood. Instead they get contaminated and die.”
Okumu's research found that mosquitoes are drawn to humans by the scent of ammonia, lactic acid, carbon dioxide and other substances released by skin, sweat and breath.
The synthetic attractant, Okumu's research has found, attracts four times more mosquitoes than real humans.The trap kills between 74 and 95 per cent of mosquitoes that enter it.
Before developing a synthetic compound to lure mosquitoes, Okumu baited his traps with dirty old socks collected from locals in Isakara, in Southeast Tanzania.
Malaria kills some 800,000 people per year, affecting Africans -- and African children -- in particular.
“This is an outdoor mosquito control strategy,” he said. “The primary focus is to develop something to complement the current primary malaria controls tools: the nets and insecticide sprays used inside houses.”
Okumu said the trap -- called the odour-baited mosquito landing box -- works best when there are 20 or more per population of 1,000. The traps are built by local carpenters using local materials, and can be produced for between $4 and $27.
Grand Challenges Canada was founded with $225 million from the federal government's 2008 budget, taken from Canada's international aid envelope.
Singer says the 29-year-old PhD student is exactly the type of innovator they are looking to support.
“Fredros Okumu is a young, innovating, dedicated person who is trying to solve African problems with African innovation,” he said. “We strongly believe that innovators in low- and middle-income countries are best suited to solve their own problems.”
Okumu said he will use the grant money to improve his prototype, train additional carpenters, and study where the traps should be placed to be most effective. (monterealgazette)
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