How SC Johnson is Working to Create Wider Access to Guardian
A New Malaria Tool Has Arrived. Now Comes the Hard Part: Getting It to the People Who Need It
In a village in East Africa, a shipment of Guardian spatial repellents arrives – one of the first communities to receive it. The boxes are unremarkable, but inside is something different: a 3 new kind of malaria-prevention tool, small enough to hang in a home, simple enough to use without electricity and designed to create a protective space against the mosquitoes that carry vector-borne diseases.
For the families who will receive them, this isn’t about delivery. It’s about whether the burden of malaria, a risk that has long been part of their daily life, might finally ease.
Community health worked in Budalangi, Kenya carrying a shipment of Guardian spatial repellents
It’s a moment that also marks a shift. After years of research and testing, spatial repellents now have what most global health tools spend years trying to secure: a World Health Organization (WHO) policy recommendation and a place in the global malaria prevention toolbox.
A milestone, but one that marks the beginning
In August 2025, the WHO endorsed spatial repellents as a new weapon in the fight against malaria, making them one of the first new categories of vector control tools to receive a policy recommendation from the WHO for malaria prevention within the last 25 years. It also prequalified the first products in the category: SC Johnson Mosquito Shield™ and SC Johnson Guardian™. That moves them from pilots or promising ideas and into the official malaria toolbox.
SC Johnson Guardian™
The prequalification, however, doesn’t mean access. A WHO recommendation triggers a new set of decisions by UN agencies, partners and member states, potentially enabling broader access in communities with urgent needs.
Countries still have to decide how it fits within national malaria strategies. Funding has to be secured. Supply has to be built. Distribution plans have to be developed. And communities have to receive – and keep using – the product.
This is where most innovations stall in actually reaching people. At this stage, the question isn’t whether the tool works. It’s about helping the wider system with the difficult work of scaling it across health systems, procurement pathways, funding structures and last-mile delivery networks. Because in global health, innovation alone doesn’t save lives once it’s approved. It saves lives when it shows up consistently, affordably and at scale in people’s homes.
Why spatial repellents matter now
Through its nonprofit global Healthier World Initiative, SC Johnson has invested heavily in developing spatial repellents designed for how people actually live: durable, low-maintenance and practical in settings where malaria risk is constant.
Guardian, which protects for up to 12 months, and Mosquito Shield, another product in the portfolio designed for shorter-term use, are the result of more than a decade of research and testing supported by over $120 million in investment. They are built on a simple idea: prevention tools only matter if they fit into people’s daily lives.
The evidence behind spatial repellents has built across very different conditions. In western Kenya, a large clinical trial found that a transfluthrin-based spatial repellent reduced first-time malaria infections by 33.4%, even in areas with high transmission and widespread bed-net use. In Tanzania, Guardian reduced mosquito blood-feeding by more than 80% over the course of a year, including against resistant mosquito populations. Other studies point to similar results in more complex settings, from communities in Benin to displacement camps in northern Nigeria, where use of spatial repellents was associated with roughly 30% fewer malaria infections over six months.
Across these settings, the pattern is consistent: this approach works.
The urgency is clear
According to the WHO’s World Malaria Report 2025, the world recorded an estimated 282 million malaria cases and 610,000 deaths in 2024, a slight increase from 2023. WHO says the African Region still accounts for most cases and deaths, and that progress is not on track to meet key 2025 targets under the Global Technical Strategy for Malaria.
That’s where spatial repellents can make a difference. Their promise lies in helping fill gaps in the current prevention toolbox, such as when people are active indoors and not under a net, or where mosquito behavior and resistance are eroding the effectiveness of older interventions.
Community health workers at Rwandan health clinic learn about Guardian and how to use it. SC Johnson helped fund the clinic to help bring healthcare closer to nearby communities.
None of this, however, is happening is a vacuum. Malaria programs aren’t building from scratch. They’re already managing bed nets, indoor spraying, diagnostics, treatment, seasonal prevention, vaccines and surveillance, often with limited budgets. For spatial repellents to become routine rather than exceptional, they have to be integrated into a landscape that is already stretched thin.
WHO’s 2025 malaria reporting shows that global malaria investment in 2024 was about $3.9 billion, well below the $9.3 billion annual target set for 2025. This means malaria-endemic countries and their partners are often forced to make careful decisions about sequencing, procurement and scale.
The issue is not the lack of good tools; it’s that there are still too few resources to deploy them quickly and broadly.
What it takes to reach a village
Getting a product into a village takes more than shipping it. It takes manufacturing capacity, distribution networks, local trust and partners who can connect it all. The goal isn’t just scale. It’s speed and reducing barriers between production and use.
This is where local manufacturing and cross-sector partnerships become especially important. For example, in February 2025, SC Johnson opened high-speed manufacturing lines at its Nairobi plant to produce Guardian, with a capacity of up to 20 million units annually. It also committed more than $10 million in Kenya to accelerate the distribution of spatial repellents, support malaria prevention education and build new health clinics in rural communities.
In May 2026, it opened a similar line in Pilar, Argentina where it worked with the government and the Ministry of Health to bring regional production of the tool and secure registration.
At the same time, distribution also depends on working with public health, nonprofit and advocacy partners who are already on the ground. SC Johnson works with partners such as The MENTOR Initiative, Society for Family Health Rwanda and United to Beat Malaria, alongside ministries of health in multiple countries, to integrate spatial repellents and education into existing programs. Large-scale adoption doesn’t happen in isolation; It happens when a new tool fits into systems people already trust.
But before we get there, funding determines what’s possible. And in May 2026, SC Johnson, the U.S. Department of State and The Global Fund announced a three-year agreement to expand access to Guardian in approximately 10 priority countries – this funding will help protect more than 60 million people over three years.
What happens next
None of what it takes to scale a new global health intervention like spatial repellents is simple. Still, despite the many implementation challenges ahead, something has shifted.
There is now a new, WHO-endorsed tool in malaria prevention, tested in real conditions and beginning to move beyond pilots into wider use. Spatial repellents have opened a new chapter in malaria prevention. The question is no longer whether it belongs. It’s how far—and how fast—it can go.
Because back in that village, one household has already started to answer that question in a small, practical way. A box is opened, a device is hung, and for one household at least, protection becomes something you can hang in your home.