Two Burkinabe former students have designed a mosquito repellent soap that could be a simple and affordable solution to ending malaria.
Moctar Dembele and Gerard Niyondiko soap was the first invention to win a 25,000 dollars prize in the Global Social Venture Competition at the University of California Berkeley in 2013.
The start-up requires more funds to test and ensure that the soap is safe for human use and effective at preventing malaria before it can be mass produced by soap manufacturers in Africa.
According to Franck Langevin, campaigns director of the start-up, the soap is created from natural oils and plants. The soap lasts for six hours after application and the soapy water that is thrown out will prevent mosquitos from breeding in stagnant water.
“It is a simple and affordable weapon in the fight against malaria,” Langevin told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Faso soap launched a crowd funding appeal of 113,000 dollars to enable them complete the development of the soap with the aim of distributing it to six African countries hit hardest by malaria by the year 2018.
World leaders pledged to end malaria by 2030 by adopting the Sustainable Development goals in 2015.
“Our goal is that our soap is widely distributed to reach the largest possible number in sub-Saharan Africa and other parts of the world affected by malaria,” says Niyondiko. “This is to say that NGOs, companies will be our potential customers for the distribution of our products. After the victory obtained at Berkeley there are so many NGOs, companies who spoke to a partnership with us in order to distribute our soap in different parts, even outside Africa.”
