Monday, July 05, 2004
Small Innovations in the fight against Malaria?
I have made several posts (one, two, three) on different methods being employed to fight Malaria. In these posts, I have already gone into the disastrous effects (including economic effects) of Malaria in the developing world. So, I can lead you straight to this interesting New York Times story on new and innovative ways to kill mosquitoes. Though the inventor patented his discovery hoping to protect his grand-daughter from the West Nile virus and the Asian tiger mosquitoes, these applications seem relevant enough to be useful in the fight against Malaria in the developing world, assuming it works as described, of course.
Mr. Hall recently received United States patent 6,708,443, a wide-ranging patent covering several approaches that he contends might help control mosquito populations across wide areas such as wetlands or regions in Africa where mosquito-borne illnesses like malaria are rampant. Most of Mr. Hall's approaches rely on the same principal: killing the mosquito eggs rather than the mosquitoes themselves. "They will breed in a bottle cap," Mr. Hall said. "The idea is to interrupt the life cycle."
His first weapon: a birdbath. According to Mr. Hall, the birdbath, which can run on batteries, solar power or electricity, provides an attractive place for mosquito mothers to lay their eggs. Every few days a tiny computer chip embedded in the birdbath instructs a pump to flush the water out, pushing it through a fine-mesh filter. As the mosquito eggs go through the filter, they are crushed. Of course, some early bloomers may already have developed into larvae or nymphs. But since they are too young to fly and they don't really know how to swim, Mr. Hall said, they drown as they take the mosquito's equivalent of a whitewater rafting trip without a life vest.
Another device Mr. Hall has invented is a shallow tray powered by what is known as a bimetal coil. As rainwater stagnates in the tray, which has a fine mesh at the bottom, it becomes an attractive spot for mosquitoes to deposit their eggs. The coil - made of two different metals strapped together, each with different expansion and contraction rates - expands as it warms during the day, pushing the mesh above the water line. The mesh captures the eggs, which bake in the sun during the day. In the evening, the coil cools and contracts, pulling the mesh back under the water, waiting for more unsuspecting mosquitoes to lay their eggs.
The story does not mention anything about cost, but I presume it cannot cost very much. The other problem I foresee is how you make your little invention a more attractive place for a mosquito to lay eggs than open sewers and drains -- a hall mark of the developing world. That said, these sort of small-scale solutions might be worth investigating while we wait for governments to get their act together and provide at least half the level of sanitation the Indus Valley civilization is reputed to have provided its citizens with.
Mr. Hall recently received United States patent 6,708,443, a wide-ranging patent covering several approaches that he contends might help control mosquito populations across wide areas such as wetlands or regions in Africa where mosquito-borne illnesses like malaria are rampant. Most of Mr. Hall's approaches rely on the same principal: killing the mosquito eggs rather than the mosquitoes themselves. "They will breed in a bottle cap," Mr. Hall said. "The idea is to interrupt the life cycle."
His first weapon: a birdbath. According to Mr. Hall, the birdbath, which can run on batteries, solar power or electricity, provides an attractive place for mosquito mothers to lay their eggs. Every few days a tiny computer chip embedded in the birdbath instructs a pump to flush the water out, pushing it through a fine-mesh filter. As the mosquito eggs go through the filter, they are crushed. Of course, some early bloomers may already have developed into larvae or nymphs. But since they are too young to fly and they don't really know how to swim, Mr. Hall said, they drown as they take the mosquito's equivalent of a whitewater rafting trip without a life vest.
Another device Mr. Hall has invented is a shallow tray powered by what is known as a bimetal coil. As rainwater stagnates in the tray, which has a fine mesh at the bottom, it becomes an attractive spot for mosquitoes to deposit their eggs. The coil - made of two different metals strapped together, each with different expansion and contraction rates - expands as it warms during the day, pushing the mesh above the water line. The mesh captures the eggs, which bake in the sun during the day. In the evening, the coil cools and contracts, pulling the mesh back under the water, waiting for more unsuspecting mosquitoes to lay their eggs.
The story does not mention anything about cost, but I presume it cannot cost very much. The other problem I foresee is how you make your little invention a more attractive place for a mosquito to lay eggs than open sewers and drains -- a hall mark of the developing world. That said, these sort of small-scale solutions might be worth investigating while we wait for governments to get their act together and provide at least half the level of sanitation the Indus Valley civilization is reputed to have provided its citizens with.
