• Domaine :

  Health

• Région :

  South America

• Pays :

  Venezuela

The project: 

Distribution of 11,000 ''life-saving custom made mosquiteros (bed-nets) to indigenous people from the Pemón, Kariña, Sanema, and Yanomami plus several smaller Amazonian tribes in Venezuela.

The request:

From: Stephen Baker, Biscayne Rotary Club, Florida 
To:      Fondation Coup de Coeur

Good day Jean and Fatima.

It was a pleasure for me to have met you for lunch at Key Biscayne yesterday. 
What a nice surprise it was also for me when you annouced that you agree to participate in our bed-nets mosquitos project in Venezuella.
As agrred upon, here is a brief descrition of the project:  
The current situation with malaria in Venezuela has gone from bad to worse. Our objective is to protect the lives and health of indigenous people who live in parts of Venezuela currently experiencing skyrocketing levels of malaria.
Many indigenous people sleep in traditional hammocks. Hammock ropes break the integrity of conventional rectangular bed-nets. Our mosquiteros are custom made to work with hammocks but their unique design also allows them to be used with beds.
A minimum of 11,000 people will be protected by our mosquiteros. These tribespeople often sleep multiple people under one mosquitero. Using an average of 2 people per mosquitero (based on direct observation of practice amongst previous recipients) our mosquiteros will protect 22,000 people.
Our custom made Rotary mosquiteros are impregnated with the insecticide “deltamethrin”. This chemical, originally found in chrysanthemum flowers, is a powerful neurotoxin for mosquitos.
When a mosquito lands on our net, it takes up the toxin through its feet and is killed or gravely damaged. Deltamethrin is not toxic to people. When a conventional bed net develops a hole, an insect can land on it and walk around until it finds the hole, enter the net and bite the sleeper, but not when using our mosquiteros. When a sleeper rolls around in a conventional bed-net and ends up in contact with the net material, a mosquito can land on the net and bite the sleeper through the net, but not on our mosquiteros. Our supplier, Vestergaard-Fransen uses state of the art technology to bond the deltamethrin directly to the polyester of the netting material. The chemical is released slowly from the material and lasts 3 to 4 years depending on how the mosquitero is used and maintained.
One very important factor that contributes to our mosquitero’s ability to dramatically reduce the level of new malaria infections in villages where everybody uses one of our Rotary mosquiteros is the so called ” mass killing effect”. People exhale carbon dioxide as they breath. Mosquitos follow this chemical to find us. When everybody in town uses impregnated nets, the village becomes a gigantic mosquito killing machine. Mosquitos in the area are drawn to the sleepers, land on the nets and are killed. People who use our mosquiteros for the first time are often amazed by the ring of dead mosquitoes they find on the floor around their net in the morning. This greatly discovery reinforces people’s desire to use the mosquiteros while the mass killing effect dramatically reduces the population of mosquitoes around the village.
Venezuela is in the midst of a severe and worsening malaria epidemic. There is not yet a vaccine for malaria.
Dr Oscar Noya, an internationally recognized expert on malaria and an advisor to the PAHO (Pan American Health Organization), estimates that the actual number is closer to 1,000,000 new infections in Venezuela in 2015. To make matters worse, the percentage of the deadly Plasmodium falciparum form of the malaria parasite is on the increase, reaching almost 25% of all infections in 2015.
The purchase, the distribution and the training of how to use these nets is worth $ 192,500.00.
As we have a shortfall of $ 1,000.00 to complete the funding, we would be very glad if your Foundation could invest the missing amount in this humanitarian project.

Yours in Rotary Service
Steve Baker
Coordinator, the Mosquitero Project
Rotary Club of Key Biscayne, Florida  

 Financial contributions: