OTTAWA — Firdaus Kharas wants to take the bite out of malaria through a series of animated public service announcements featuring pesky mosquitoes. The Ottawa-area producer is currently finishing dubbing a crop of PSAs — that will be made available to broadcasters around the world — warning and educating people about the bug-borne disease in 23 languages including Afrikaans, Burmese, Hindi and Tagalog.

Eventually, the five one-minute spots, and another 25 that are 30 seconds long, will be available in 40 languages, says Kharas, founder of Ottawa-based Chocolate Moose Media. He hopes to reach 80% of the global population that is at risk of malaria, in regions including South America, sub-Saharan Africa, India and Southeast Asia.

‘During a 20-minute phone conversation, 40 children will die somewhere in the world of malaria,’ says Kharas.

The ‘Buzz and Bite Malaria Prevention’ campaign is being financed with $25,000 from the Canadian Red Cross and $50,000 from the International Federation of Red Cross. The producer pegs the cost of the PSAs at $500,000, but notes that most of the people working on the project are volunteering their time.

The spots follow the same approach as Kharas’ Peabody Award-winning ‘Three Amigos’ PSAs that are aimed at preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS — using humor to spark people to change their behavior.

‘Animation is something that can create humor globally,’ he says. ‘I’m not trying to scare people into action, but use humor to relay serious information.’

The animation was completed by Holland’s CG Tunes, but most of the pre- and post-production work was done in Canada.

The type of mosquitoes that spread malaria from one person to another through bites are not found in Canada, so the PSAs aimed at this part of the world encourage Canadians to buy mosquito nets for the areas that are affected by malaria. The PSAs will be made available to CTV, CBC and Canwest.

In the malaria-stricken areas, the PSAs try to dispel myths about how the disease is spread and to encourage action to prevent it. One features female mosquitoes laughing at a woman who is using the net as a wedding veil rather than to protect herself while sleeping.

With the PSAs set to be distributed next week, Kharas is already eying his next project — either a campaign about child soldiers or violence against women.