Salum Mshamu Showed How Smarter Home Design Can Prevent Deadly Diseases

Mshamu first trained as a nurse, but felt he could make a bigger difference in public health. After he got his master’s at Lund University in Sweden, he teamed up with architect Jakob Brandtberg Knudsen, and Lorenz von Seidlein, professor at the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, Thailand. Soon, with Mshamu as a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, the three were collaborating on an exciting new project in Tanzania called Star Homes, focusing on trialing homes designed to reduce the spread of malaria, as well as diarrheal infections, which kill nearly 2 million children in middle- and low-income countries annually, and respiratory infections, which account for about 350,000 childhood deaths annually in sub-Saharan Africa. At first glance, the homes, of which 110 were built across more than 50 villages, seem an odd fit. Their concrete floors and metal roofs look nothing like the region’s traditional rammed earth houses. But earthen houses are often too hot at night for their inhabitants to use protective mosquito netting, and problems with sanitation and ventilation increase disease risk. Mshamu and his colleagues were interested in trying another wa...