The Vestergaard-Frandsen Company, in Denmark, has found solving health problems and making products for the world’s poorest and most unhealthy places can both save lives and make good business sense. The New York Times reports:
There are plenty of charitable foundations and public agencies devoted to helping the world’s poor, many with instantly recognizable names like Unicef or the Gates Foundation.
But private companies with that as their sole focus are rare. Even the best-known is not remotely a household name: Vestergaard-Frandsen.Its products are in use in refugee camps and disaster areas all over the third world: PermaNet, a mosquito net impregnated with insecticide; ZeroFly, a tent tarp that kills flies; and the LifeStraw, a filter worn around the neck that makes filthy water safe to drink.
The company is known for its creative responses to difficult issues:
In September, to celebrate Vestergaard-Frandsen’s 50th anniversary, the company tried something particularly audacious.
Very few rural Africans are willing to take AIDS tests because the stigma of even asking for a test is so strong. Mikkel decided to try bribery. Picking one health district in western Kenya, he offered anyone who would get tested a pack containing a net, a water purifier, 60 condoms and health education pamphlets.
Huge lines formed at the district’s 30 clinics, and nearly 50,000 people were tested. In one week, the percentage of adults in the district who had taken a test went to over 80 percent from less than 20 percent. Because testing was so centralized and fast, it included CD-4 counts, which are more sophisticated and determine whether someone is sick enough to start antiretroviral therapy immediately.
It was expensive — it cost the company $3 million. “But if I may be so blunt,” Mikkel said, “it’s the only demonstrable way besides door-to-door visits to get that response.”
He hopes to publish the data in a medical journal so donors can consider picking up the tab.
Read more here.
For more on mosquito nets and how to donate them click here.