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A fungus that produces an insecticide can stop the spread of the mosquito Anopheles, responsible for malaria.
In Burkina Faso, in field tests, US researchers infected mosquitoes with toxic fungus spores Metarhizium Pingshaense. In six weeks, the mosquito population has collapsed.
The new process could help control malaria epidemics, scientists said around Brian Lovett of the University of Maryland in Science.
It was already known that Metarhizium pingshaense attacked mosquitoes and killed some of them, but with low efficiency. Lovel et al enhanced efficacy by introducing a gene coding for the "hybrid" insect-specific neurotoxin. The genetically modified spore infection killed about 75% of the regional population of Anopheles mosquitoes. While 1,500 mosquitoes uninfected with fungal spores produced 1,396 offspring after two generations, 1,500 treated fungi had only 13 grandchildren.
According to the World Health Organization, malaria affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide and kills more than 400,000 each year. Decades of insecticide use have not been successful in controlling mosquitoes that carry the malaria parasite and have led to the insecticide resistance of many strains of mosquitoes.
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