SCIENCE WITH A MISSION, INC.

Disease:

Most people know that malaria is a tropical disease that is transmitted by mosquitoes.  But did you know that every day, more than three thousand people die from malaria?  That’s right, more than three thousand every single day.   And out of all those deaths, three out of four deaths are of children under the age of five.  There are four different types of parasites that can cause malaria in humans.  On the continent of Africa, the dominant form is the most lethal – causing 90% of all malarial deaths. 

Diagnosis:
According to a joint World Health Organization and USAID report: “In malaria patients, a prompt and accurate diagnosis is the key to effective disease management.  The two diagnostic approaches currently used most often, however, do not allow a satisfactory diagnosis of malaria. Clinical diagnosis, the most widely used approach, is unreliable because the symptoms of malaria are very non-specific. Microscopic diagnosis, the established method for laboratory confirmation of malaria, presents technical and personnel requirements that often cannot be met.”  This is why Science with a Mission is working to develop a diagnostic for malaria using an immunoassay format.  Our test will be more accurate than a clinical diagnosis (based just on a physical exam).  And it will not require expensive equipment, like microscopes.  In fact, you will not even need to have electricity or trained nurses to run our tests. 

Geographic Distribution: