Researchers have tried unsuccessfully for decades to develop a malaria vaccine. Now a new approach, showing promise in mice, suggests it is possible to block mosquitoes from spreading the disease.
A close-up of a female Anopheles arabiensis feeding.
Author supplied
Progress in malaria control has stalled. Research towards an effective vaccine is underway.
Even without drugs, nets or an understanding of what caused malaria, human bodies were still fighting against the parasite – and winning.
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Cystic fibrosis is the most common genetic disease among Caucasians. Now scientists believe they have discovered the origin of this often lethal genetic mutation and how it spread throughout Europe.
More than 3.9 billion people live in regions where the Aedes aegypti mosquito is present. This species transmits Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever.
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For several billion people mosquitoes are more than a nuisance – they transmit deadly diseases. Now genetic modification may prove the most effective defense against the mosquito, preventing disease.
Each year, 500,000 people die of malaria annually, a preventable disease. Most of them children in Africa, where many anti-malarial drugs are fake or substandard.
A Malawian woman receives a bednet to protect her and her child from mosquitoes that spread malaria.
MSF/ Wilfred Masebo
Olivier Telle, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)
The spread of infectious diseases such as chikungunya is closely linked to urban mobility, yet small Indian cities could play a crucial role in the resilience process.
Principal Medical Scientist and Head of Laboratory for Antimalarial Resistance Monitoring and Malaria Operational Research, National Institute for Communicable Diseases