―

Malaria kills over 1.2 million people annually, mostly African children under the age of five. Poorly designed irrigation and water systems, inadequate housing, poor waste disposal and water storage, deforestation and loss of biodiversity, all may be contributing factors to the most common vector-borne diseases, including malaria, dengue and leishmaniasis.

1.

Design simple and inexpensive mechanical traps, specifically designed for mosquitos. Rapid prototyping via 3d printing is allowing us to optimize the physical design parameters for real world tests faster than ever before. We plan to have a fully functional and field tested design by 2022.

2.

Formulate an inexpensive and easy to refresh attractant to make the traps preferable to humans. Experiments are currently underway to maximize the attraction potential and duration of effect for our attraction medium. Our goal is to provide 4 weeks of attraction per refresh at a level significantly greater than human occupants along with the trap design. 

3.

Deploy baited traps to a number of key populations in targeted areas and measure the efficacy of the project. Our goal is to design a system that will achieve greater than 75% adherence, through ease of use and noticeable efficacy, and reduce local mosquito-borne illnesses by 25% within 6 months of deployment.