What does it take to make a better bed net? It's no small matter: Bed nets are a critical defense against malaria, which each year kills 1 million people and makes another 300 million ill in developing regions. The solution, it turns out, is no small matter either.
Olyset bed nets, featuring a dramatically better pesticide mechanism and an expected lifetime five times that of existing nets, are now coming off the knitting machines at A to Z, a textile company in Arusha, Tanzania. Behind that breakthrough, though, is something even more striking: a sweeping partnership of for-profit and not-for-profit heavies including the World Health Organization, UNICEF, Exxon Mobil Corp., Japan's Sumitomo Chemical, and Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture capitalist.
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