WEDNESDAY, May 22, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- Genetically modified mosquitoes may help curb the spread of malaria.
That's the buzz from Case Western University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, where researchers are trying to create mosquitoes that can't transmit the deadly disease from human to human.
Their efforts are focused on one genus of mosquitoes -- anopheles -- which is the only type of mosquito able to transmit malaria among mammals, says a report in the May 23 issue of the journal Nature.
The Case scientists say they have created a gene that, when injected into a mosquito embryo, becomes part of the mosquito's DNA and interferes with the development of the malaria parasite in the mosquito.
This blocks the process that begins when a mosquito takes blood from a malaria-infected human or animal. Normally, the malaria parasite enters the mosquito's body and goes through several transformations before it reaches a stage where it can be passed on when the mosquito bites another person.
This is the first attempt to create this kind of genetically altered mosquito, and the Case researchers say much more work is needed to resolve a number of problems with this method.
Malaria kills about two million people a year, mostly African children under the age of 5.
More information
For everything you ever wanted know about these little flying pests, visit the American Mosquito Control Association.
