Value added - USG serves Georgia [Mar. 2009]

VALUE ADDED: USG Serves Georgia
March 2009

Georgia Southern Professor has Malaria Prevention Invention

More than 500 million people worldwide are infected with malaria each year, killing one to three million people, many of them children. Georgia Southern University epidemiology professor Tom Kollars hopes his invention, the ProVector, will drastically reduce those numbers.

"If we can make a dent in that, I can go out of this world knowing I made it
a better place," said Kollars, the director of the Biodefense and Infectious Disease Laboratory in Georgia Southern's JiannPing Hsu College of Public Health.
The ProVector an alluring artificial flower targets mosquitoes that carry deadly diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus. Mosquitoes are drawn to the ProVector by its bright colors (different mosquito species are attracted to different colors). They feed on an artificial nectar containing Bacillus thurengiensis (Bt), a safe biopesticide. In blind trials conducted by a Walter Reed Army Institute of Research overseas laboratory, the ProVector killed 50 to 100 percent of mosquitoes within days.
The ProVector comes in two models: the ProVector Bt, which kills the mosquito within a few days of eating the bait, and the ProVector M, which kills the malaria parasite inside the mosquito, leaving the mosquito to survive
CLICK HERE to view a short video filmed in the jungles of in Puerto Rico in which Dr. Kollar explains how the ProVector works.

Dr. Tom Kollars with his ProVector mosquito lure
and serve its role in the environment without infecting humans.
"This is a very environmentally-friendly apparatus that uses a safe biopesticide, so it can be safely used in the home," Kollar noted. "No pesticides are sprayed into the environment."
The homes where Kollars envisions ProVectors are located in tropical and subtropical regions. People in those areas live in forests and fields, in huts without air conditioning or window screens. Bed nets have been a tremendous tool in reducing mosquito-borne illnesses, but have proven to be only 7 percent effective in children under six months old. The bed nets also develop holes over time and mosquitoes have become resistant to the pesticides used on the nets, Kollars said.
See "MALARIA PREVENTION," p. 2...

VALUE ADDED USG Serves Georgia

Malaria Prevention Continued from P. 1
Kollars spent about 10 years perfecting the ProVector, working out of his garage and spending "over $100,000" of his own money to develop it. Now, that effort is paying off. Kollars patented the idea and then licensed the patent to Medical Infusion Technologies, Inc., which plans to begin manufacturing and marketing the ProVector this year.
What makes the ProVector such a viable tool, Kollars says, is its cost-effectiveness. The devices will sell for about $10 apiece. About every three months, it will need a $1 bait refill.
"The average Kenyan spends about $110 a year out of their $360 a year salary to treat their family for malaria alone. That's one disease," Kollars said. "A health department could buy this device for the family, and then the family could protect itself for $4 a year instead of $110 a year."
Kollars recently returned from Puerto Rico, where he tested the ProVector in a real jungle environment. He and Dr. Steven Hatfill, an infectious disease physician, set up a simulated village of 14 tents, each with a ProVector inside. They spent three weeks in the jungle, and will

return in seven months to see how well the devices fare in extreme tropical conditions in reducing the mosquito population.
ProVector Bt is currently being used to reduce mosquito populations around homes in Afghanistan. Next month, Kollars will visit Thailand and provide the ProVector Bt to a school there to help reduce the number of children contracting dengue fever, which kills up to 40 percent of children contracting the disease. In May, Kollars will travel to Kenya to conduct field research with the U.S. Army, and he will also travel to Uganda to begin epidemiology research with the Ministry of Health with the goal of reducing the number of malaria cases.
"We're potentially going to save hundreds of thousands of lives," Kollars said. "What more could a person in the public health profession want, than to make such an impact?"
Kollars and two assistants continue to conduct ProVector laboratory and field experiments at Georgia Southern University. They recently presented their research in Vienna, Austria, and Heidi Hulsey, Kollars' doctoral student in the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health, will present at the American Mosquito Control Association in New Orleans in early April. Q

FVSU Expands Business Support Center
Fort Valley State University opened a newly expanded Entrepreneur Center on Feb. 18. FVSU President Larry E. Rivers, vice president of external affairs and FVSU Foundation Director Melody Carter and Fort Valley Mayor John E. Stumbo cut the ribbon on the facility, which provides below-market office space to entrepreneurs.

The center currently houses five businesses: two lawyers, a public defender, a consultant and Middle Georgia Technical College's adult literacy program. A $170,000 renovation of the 107-year-old building funded by the FVSU Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture added 3,700 square feet for six new businesses. The space is also home to FVSU's Rural Business Outreach.
"This new center is a step toward making our town viable again," said Lorraine Khoury, director of the Fort Valley Downtown Development Authority. "It's a wonderful example of what happens when everyone pitches in." Q