New life of lab equipment makes science possible for researchers returning to their home countries
In the landlocked, sub-Saharan country of Malawi, oftentimes only land separates wells for drinking water from sewage in toilet pits.
Cholera, a highly contagious bacterial disease found in contaminated water, becomes a concern when that dividing line disappears during each year’s rainy season. A natural disaster like Cyclone Idai, which struck in March and devastated parts of three countries, makes identifying clean water even more urgent. When UNICEF and Brazilian cholera scientists arrived to test samples just days after the cyclone hit, they needed a local partner who was up to the task.
They found one in Gama Bandawe and his lab at the Malawi University of Science and Technology. Just four months earlier, Bandawe had unpacked a 20-foot container filled with the testing equipment he needed from Seeding Labs, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that collects lab equipment in high-income countries and redistributes it at a lower cost to labs in low- and middle-income countries.
“We were able to show them, here are our laboratories, and here’s the equipment that we have. The next day, samples started arriving,” said Bandawe, the head of biological sciences at the university. He believes it was the equipment
