For 16 years Dr Valentin Agon has worked to find a way to minimise the death toll from malaria. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that in 2015, in Africa, the disease killed more than 300,000 children under the age of five.His solution, called Api-Palu, is made from a plant extract, and is cheaper and said to be more effective than rival pharmaceutical medicines.Last week Agon, from Benin, won the US$100,000 2016 Innovation Prize for Africa (IPA). The IPA, as its name suggests, rewards African innovation. This year, ideas to combat malaria and HIV/Aids won the top three prizes in the five-year-old competition when its awards ceremony was held in Gaborone, Botswana.Along with Agon’s medication, another ground-breaking solution came from Nigeria’s Dr Eddy Agbo, who invented a 25-minute test for malaria. It allows a urine sample to be tested for traces of the disease.Until now malaria tests could be done only by drawing blood and in some parts of the continent this could take da...
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