A new weapon against mosquitoes may soon be available to assist in the fight against malaria.  The Charlotte Observer reported on the development.

From the article. 

A mosquito usually lives up to two weeks, just enough time for a malaria parasite to mature and infect the insect’s victims. But diatomaceous earth – ground-up fossilized algae that is nontoxic to humans – is an insecticide that can kill mosquitoes in only a few days, said Marian McCord, a textile engineer at N.C. State.

“It’s very hard to keep a mosquito from biting you, and bed nets are just a physical barrier that can tear,” McCord said. “With diatomaceous earth, we can injure a mosquito, shorten its life span and potentially prevent others from becoming infected with malaria.”

As natural bait, the chalky, abrasive diatomaceous earth attracts insects. When a mosquito lands on it, the substance agitates and damages the waxy outer layer of the mosquito’s exoskeleton, making it susceptible to dehydration and disease. The injuries cut the mosquito’s life span to one or two days, eliminating its ability to transmit malaria. The insecticide is also effective against other pests, including bed bugs.

New research is underway to devestate the development of wings on femal mosquitoes in order to prevent the spread of disease such a dengue fever and malaria.

Females do the biting, but if they can’t fly they can’t zoom in on their victims. They would be expected to die quickly on the ground, researchers suggest in a paper in a recent edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The real goal is to prevent mosquitoes from spreading disease, and the researchers, led by Luke Alphey of the University of Oxford, are studying ways to reduce the spread of dengue fever, found mostly in Asia, which mosquitoes carry.

The researchers, several of whom have commercial interests in the work, developed a method to genetically alter male mosquitoes, then release them to mate with females in the wild. The wing muscles of their female offspring would not develop properly, preventing them from flying. (Males don’t inherit the defect.)

Interesting work that could be expanded to help fight malaria but change the mosquito forever.

We enjoy the steady stream of news about new research in the malaria sector – and especially in Africa. News today about research we have heard about before – genetically altering mosquitoes to be malaria resistant.

A team at INSERM (the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research) has identified a gene that makes certain mosquitoes malaria resistant. According to the researchers, these mosquitoes could become our allies in the battle against malaria.

As we know, malaria parasites have to spend part of their life inside mosquitoes and part inside humans. By discovering how these mosquitoes become malaria resistant we may be able to develop new tools that will limit transmission of the disease to humans, explains Stéphanie Blandin of INSERM.

With her colleagues, she studied the entire DNA of the anopheles mosquito – the principal vector of the parasite responsible for the most severe form of the disease in Africa. By focusing on the mosquito’s resistance to the parasite used as an experimental model in rodents, she was able to isolate the gene involved in this resistance mechanism.

It is encouraging to see research progressing and one day soon malaria will be no more.

Next week, June 21^st- 27^th, is National Mosquito Control Awareness Week. The Seattle Healthy Living Examiner gets a head start with an interesting article describing the threats mosquitoes bring to the human population.

As we know well, they are not only annoying pests that cause itchy bites but they carry and transmit diseases.

Mosquitoes can spread Dengue Fever, Encephalitis (a inflammation of the brain) and a number of other diseases but of course the most devastating mosquito transmitted disease is Malaria. Half of the world’s population is at risk, which leads to 250 million malaria cases annually. 1 million people die each year. In Africa, every 30 seconds a child dies from the disease (WHO). Although malaria was eliminated in the United States by 1951, it is important to realize the enormous affect it has on the rest of the world.

We can take steps to eliminate the annoyance of mosquitoes at home but how can we help across the globe? While the US is not highly affected by the diseases transmitted by mosquitoes billions in the world are, making it important for the US to help increase prevention efforts around the world.

The Associated Press published a story describing Sanaria and the University of Maryland’s attempts to create a malaria vaccine using gene therapy.

The first step was to create a mosquito that was less able to spread the malaria parasite. The insect still housed the parasite but weakened it to such a degree that it didn’t cause malaria, in most cases.  Next, by “switching off” the gene that protects the mosquitoes from the parasite, they hope to create a mosquito to serve as a parasite incubator. These can then be used in the creation of a vaccine.

Gene therapy is a relatively new idea in the serge to create a malaria vaccine. As Dr. Hoffman of Sanaria was quoted saying, “a vaccine made of living parasites was considered laughable 5 to 7 years ago”. Trials of Sanaria’s new vaccine have already begun, signifying a step closer to the goal of eradicating malaria.

With the increasing progress in the development of a vaccine, we can hope that in the near future, we will be able not only to prevent malaria with bed net and drug distribution but to permanently protect children and families from the disease for a lifetime.

 However, as the manipulation of mosquitoes described in the Associate Press Article demonstrates, the process and science behind creating such a vaccine is complicated.  For this reason, we need to continue to support research in this and other areas to find a comprehensive solution to malaria.