African Students in Burkina Faso 'Invent Anti-malaria Soap'
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Your head is pounding, burning with raging
fever, your aching bones feeling like they weigh a ton.
Covered in profuse
sweating, your exhausted body shivers with teeth-chattering chills.
For anyone who's suffered through severe
bouts of malaria, this is the nauseating roller coaster the disease typically
wreaks on its victims, reports CNN.
But now an award-winning innovation by two
students in Burkina Faso could help reduce the devastating impact of the
life-threatening disease, which is caused by parasites that are spread to
humans through the bites of infected mosquitoes.
Moctar Dembele, who is from Burkina Faso,
and Gerard Niyondiko, from Burundi, have used locally sourced herbs and natural
ingredients to create a soap they say repels mosquitoes, in order to prevent
malaria.
Dubbed "Fasoap," the innovation
was awarded the $25,000 Grand Prize in the Global Social Venture Competition
(GSVC), in April. Launched by Berkeley MBA students, the GSVC is a global
competition designed to help budding entrepreneurs transform their ideas into
businesses that will have a positive social impact.
Fasoap is made from shea butter, essential
lemongrass oil and other ingredients that are still a secret.
"After using the soap, it leaves on
the skin a scent that repels mosquitoes," says Niyondiko, who studies with
Dembele at the International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering
in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.
"In addition, waste water products
contain substances that prevent the development of mosquito larvae, because the
sanitation problem in Africa is one of the causes of mosquito vectors of
malaria."
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