In general, I believe the premise of this is a bit off. You often see that people from the west try to design "low-cost" devices for developing countries by introducing paradigm-shifting changes to the design. But this rarely seems to succeed. Just think of all the low cost computing device projects for Africa and India.

What won out in the end? Ultra-Low-Cost smartphones, basically offering the same functionality as the western counterparts but with cost drastically reduced by being based on completely domestic chinese designs and Android.

In this case, the problem is rather the education required to use the microscope and interpret the results. A professional will probably manage to finance a $50-$100 microscope, either second hand or as a knock-off, regardless of being in a third world country.

The paper microscope is a great toy or educational device though.