Monday, July 6, 2015

Bart Knols: Waging War on Mosquitoes

 
By Jeremy Wilks

Bart Knols has declared war on mosquitoes, armed with nothing more than plastic tubes and fine netting, and steely determination. The Dutchman and his colleagues from In2Care, a small startup company he founded in 2011, are on a mission to eradicate the disease, step by step, in some of the worst affected areas of Africa.

Speaking to Euronews Explorers, his incredible drive in taking on this seemingly unbeatable disease is simply expressed: “I’ve been in this field for 22 years, I’ve had malaria nine times myself, I almost lost my wife to it, and I’ve seen too many children die in small clinics in the remotest corners of Africa – what more motivation do you want?”

Malaria is a very common and deadly parasitic disease transmitted by mosquitoes, killing an estimated 600,000 people each year, many of them children under five years of age, the vast majority in sub-Saharan Africa. That’s one death every minute. Yet many believe it can be beaten. Bill Gates and Pedro Alonso, Director of the Global Malaria Programme of the World Health Organization recently announced that malaria could be eradicated from the face of the planet by 2030, if the right tools are in place.

The way Bart has gone about tackling malaria is different and innovative. Thanks to an EU research grant in 2012, he brought together a diverse team of experts to try to find new ways to deal with malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

“I got people involved who had no idea about malaria but were total experts in other field like chemistry or physics, or had a business background, and let them have a completely novel look at the system,” he explains.

Full article available here: Bart Knols

Source: Euronews

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