Faso soap or Fasoap is the brand of a Burkina Faso-manufactured type of soap, in the development stage, which ostensibly repels mosquitoes and thus protects from mosquito-borne diseases.
The company has shifted its focus from the Faso soap to a mosquito-repellent ointment called Maïa.[1]
Faso soap was developed in 2013[2] by two Institut International d'Ingénierie de l'Eau et de l'Environnement (International Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering) students-turned-entrepreneurs, Moctar Dembélé, from Burkina Faso, and Gérard Niyondiko, from Burundi.[3]
According to its developers, Faso soap is made of shea butter, lemongrass, African marigold and other "natural ingredients" that can be found in Burkina Faso.[3] The soap's purpose is to leave an insect-repelling odor on the user's skin after washing.[4]
The intent is to repel mosquitoes and thus prevent mosquito bites that can transmit diseases such as malaria, chikungunya, yellow fever, or dengue.[4]
In April 2016, a crowd funding campaign was initiated[5] in order to finance large-scale testing of the product and an amount of over 70,000 Euros was reportedly collected.[6]
A similar mosquito-repellent soap is in development at Johns Hopkins. The program, headed by Dr. Soumyadipta Acharya, uses permethrin in its soap. Permethrin is a shorter-lived compound that can "comfortably reside on [the] skin."[4]