Farhana Sultana, Assistant Scientist at icddr,b has won the grand prize for her proposed innovation- developing a machine to produce jute cellulose-based sanitary pads for sustainable menstrual health, at the 4th Annual Innovations Pitch Competition.
In collaboration with Dr Mubarak Ahmed Khan (Scientific Advisor at Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation), Sultana manually developed and piloted the jute cellulose-based disposable pad which is an alternative solution for menstrual health and hygiene for women and girls in Bangladesh.
Jute cellulose is a new material and currently, there is no machine available in the country to manufacture such pads which is a barrier to scalability.
The competition was on “A Healthier Global Community Addressing the Twin Challenges of Pandemic Preparedness and Impact of Climate Change.”
American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) organised the competition and awarded US$5,000 to Sultana and she will be a judge for the 5th Annual Innovations Pitch Competition to be held in 2022.
With the money won from the award, Sultana will conduct an industrial trial for mass production, develop a business plan and explore options for further scale-up and waste management.
The industrial trial will also assess the compatibility, compressibility and stretchability of the pad, and conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis with other commercially available disposable sanitary pads.
More information regarding the competition will be available at https://www.astmh.org/.../outbreak-innovations-competition.
