Breeding Dragon flies for healthy communities

According to the World Malaria Report (2018), the World Health Organisation reports that Africa continues to carry a high share of the global malaria burden. In 2017, the region was home to 92% of malaria cases and 93% of malaria deaths, with children under 5 years of age being the most vulnerable group affected by malaria accounting for 61% of all malaria deaths worldwide despite the billions of money being spent by partners to curb it.

This project aims at breeding dragon flies which are a species of carnivorous insects that heavily feed on any flying insects especially mosquitoes. 

An adult dragon fly can feed on 30 to hundreds of mosquitoes in a day and therefore, breeding and increasing the population of dragon flies would perfectly eliminate mosquitoes without any harm on the environment

Malaria fever is a life-threatening disease caused by Plasmodium falciparum parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. It is preventable and curable but the disease has a very high prevalence in the tropics.

According to World Health Organisation (2018), Africa bears 92% of the cases of malaria with a half in its four countries, Nigeria (25%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (11%), Mozambique (5%), and Uganda (4%). 

The disease has caused huge unending spending by intetnational partners in preventing and controling its prevalence but it is still showing high patient turn overs at both National, referral, general and community based hospitals in Uganda and causing more deaths in children below 5 years. 

The pathogens have continued to become resistant to anti-malarial drugs while sleeping inside mosquito nets is not taken serious by people in rural areas because there is a lot of heat and discomfort under them while others are usually outside the nets for most of the times where they are fed on by mosquitoes rendering use of nets useless.

This project will be piloted in West Nile Region of Uganda and later replicated to serve Uganda's 45 Million people.

West Nile suffers a major challenge of Malaria fever incidence affecting over 450 people in 1000, according to reports from Ministry of Health, 2018. For this reason, we think it is wise to have the start up helping people in the most endangered region. 

This project will not use any complex systems but will provide an environment for breeding of millions of dragon flies which are heavy feeders of mosquitoes at all stages of their growth.

The dragon flies will then be released into communities to feed on the mosquitoes hence reducing their populations, reducing the spread of Malaria.

Its of great advantage that even after all mosquitoes have been eaten, dragon flies can still eat other insects of other potential harm while spreading no disease and neither presenting any environmental harm.

Breeding Dragon flies to check on mosquito populations is a new method of preventing malaria in the low developed countries. 

Other methods that are present are either expensive for governments or have proved inneffective to eliminate the vector of the parasite. Dragon flies breeding is a new method that will eliminate mosquitoes comfortably without over burdening funders and also reducing efforts on sensitizing every household on how to prevent or control malaria.

This is the insect breeding technology and use of biological control methods in control of Vector populations.

For close monitoring of the first batch of dragon flies,  we will attach micro-detectors on their wings which will enable us to determine how far the dragon flies can fly and taking counts of the mosquitoes fed on per day.

This project will capitalize on breeding dragon flies to check on the population of mosquitoes in communities. 

We target at saving over 2.5 Million citizens in West Nile Sub-region which is an upcountry region with a greater percentage of women and children that are more prone to malaria.

We expect this breeding program to have reduced the population of mosquitoes in West Nile greatly and  serve a wider area in the next 5 years where we further expect the project to have reached self sustainablity, with the numbers of dragon flies in circulation able to mate freely and produce more and more. 

Currently, the project is at concept stage and has served 0 people.

In one years time,  it will be serving a population of 500,000 people in Arua District and later spread to capture the whole of West Nile Sub-region with a population of 2.5 million people by the fifth year. 

The goals to be achieved in one year are; 

1. To put in place structures required for the breeding program 

2. To breed and supply over 1.5 Million Dragon flies as a pilot project to communities

3. To reduce the cases of malaria at the health centers by 20%

By the 5th year, we expect to have; 

4. Reduced malaria cases in West Nile region by 80%

5. Produced and supplied millions of dragon flies to communities beyond West Nile 

1. Currently, we have no funds to facilitate our project activities 

2. There is less information about how far a dragon fly can move

1. We have reached out and participated on this competition where we expect to emerge as competent winners of the grant to materialise our idea. 

2. Through more research and use of micro-detectors,  we will be able to establish how far each dragon fly can move to determine the rage of impact.

We hope to have this project as a non-profit and use funds given as a grant to provide service to people of Uganda.

Our sustainability will be measured in terms of our products being able to create more products by themselves without our in put. 

We expect this project to be self-sustainable after five years and be ready for replication in other areas

If our solution is selected, we expect to receive a grant funding to implement our project

World Health Organization 

World Bank

The prize money will be used to carry out the planned activities within the breeding program to fully operationalize the idea.