MEDICAL RESEARCH PROJECT ON RUBBER TREE PLANTATIONS – THE OUTCOMING RESULTS

The Michelin Corporate Foundation is active in the health sphere.
For three years it has been backing local Institut Pasteur teams in Laos and Côte d’Ivoire.

The aim of the project has been to limit exposure to mosquitoes bearing potentially deadly diseases such as malaria and dengue fever in emerging countries. The research has been mainly conducted in rubber tree plantations where the risk of being stung is much greater than in the villages (by a factor of up to 16 in Laos) and where mosquitos are more likely to be disease carriers.

In Côte d’Ivoire for example, 20% of mosquitoes in the scope of the study are of the Anopheles and Aedes types which are the main vectors for transmitting malaria, yellow fever and chikungunya.
The results have enabled the effectiveness of different means of protection to be established and recommendations to be made on reducing exposure by adopting correct behaviors such as wearing thick, long-sleeved garments, using mosquito nets, paying attention to stagnant water and plastic waste and going to a treatment center if running a temperature.

These practical measures should reduce the occurrence of these diseases which often have devastating consequences.