A mosquito. Photo /Wikipedia ]
Malaria infection will soon be a story of the past following the researchers discovery of two possible ways of killing the malaria parasites.
According to researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Malaria Research Institute, they have managed to come up with genetic approach to kill parasites causing malaria.
The scientists said that in the first study they genetically modified mosquitoes that is are capable of surpressing the development of the malaria causing parasites thus will no longer be able to spread malaria.
Marcelo Jacobs-Lorena,a senior author and a Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that the new mosquitoes are able to survive various generations of malaria carrying mosquitoes.
He also added that the genetically modified mosquitoes were able to colonize and surpress various malaria parasites and that they did not have any effect on the lifespan and fertility of other mosquitoes.
He has also praised this method saying that it is cheap and will aid to reduce on the purchase of Insecticides and Nets.
The second study was based on the association of the modified mosquitoes with other normal mosquitoes and if they could mate and breed. The study also focused on the resistance of the new mosquitoes to various malaria parasites and there reactions.
According to the leader of the study, biologist George Dimopoulos, they were impressed with the ability of the modified to not only breed but become more attractive to the other mosquitoes.
“To my surprise, the normal male mosquitoes preferred the genetically modified females, while the genetically modified males went wild over the normal females." he said.
With these discovery scientists now have confidence that the modified mosquitoes will thrive and spread their genetic immunity other mosquitoes.