Land Rover helps drive Malaria out of Africa
Land Rover’s Discovery has celebrated its 30th anniversary by playing the role of mobile laboratory on a pioneering drive across sub-Saharan Africa as part of the latest Land Rover Bursary.
Driving a Discovery developed by Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations and led by Dr George Busby, the Mobile Malaria Project team worked with local scientists to extract and analyse DNA in remote locations, generating useful genetic data within hours; rather than having to wait weeks for the same information hitherto despatched to laboratories overseas.
The 2018 Land Rover Bursary, awarded in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), supported the team of three Oxford University researchers on a 7,350km
(4,567 mile) trip across Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya.
The one-off Discovery was equipped as a mobile genetic sequencing laboratory, making full-use of its 1,137-litre load space with a fridge/ freezer to safely store scientific supplies, a bespoke load space configuration system to hold the team’s equipment and an on-board expedition battery.
A purpose-built dual sun awning, rescue kit, winch, sand/ mud tracks, roof rack and LED night driving lamps completed the list of modifications.
Malaria remains the thirdbiggest killing infectious disease in the world with 90 percent of cases occurring in Africa.
The distribution of drug resistance in the parasites that cause malaria and insecticide resistance in the mosquitoes that transmit it, varies across the continent, and genetic analysis is one way of providing important information on where resistance lies for local control programmes.
Identifying and understanding the most effective insecticides against local mosquito populations, and the most successful treatments against the parasites they carry, are crucial for future efforts to control the spread of malaria.
Fresh from this success, Land Rover has announced the winners of the 2019 bursary, an all women team, who will travel through remote rural East Africa with the aid of another bespoke Discovery.
They will gather evidence on the factors influencing farmers’ adoption of pest management technologies, focusing on fall armyworm, a highly destructive pest threatening food security.
In addition, applications for the 2020 Land Rover Bursary – which will be the first to use the new Defender opened on September 01. The closing date for entries is 30 November 2019.