Discovery of a new variety of mosquito vector of malaria

Written by Sandeep Nehra

French researchers have discovered a new variety of mosquito vector of malaria, which could complicate the fight against this devastating disease especially in young African children, according to their works published on Thursday in the United States.

Mosquitoes in a laboratory

This mosquito is genetically distinct from other subgroups of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae. The female of the latter transmits the plasmodium parasite that causes malaria, “says Michelle Riehle of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, lead author of the discovery.

This new type of mosquito may affect the transmission and control of malaria, because it is very sensitive to the parasite, the researchers fear the disclosure of which appears in the journal Scientific American Science dated 4 February.

The infectologues this new mosquito collected near villages in Burkina Faso during a period of four years and determined that this subtype of Anopheles gambiae differed from all others in the collection so far.

According to these researchers, this sub-group of Anopheles was not discovered earlier because almost all specimens of Anopheles collected for research in the past came from indoors where you can catch them easily.

Anophelines which are confined mostly inside the home display certain behaviors and particular susceptibility to the malaria parasite that separate them from mosquitoes living mainly outdoors.

Scientists also believe that the vast majority of malaria transmission are due to the variety of mosquitoes living inside homes in Africa.

However, previous campaigns to control the transmission of the parasite such as the Garki project in Nigeria in the 70s, have failed because mosquitoes genetically distinct living outside continued to transmit the plasmodium despite heavy use of insecticides in homes, the researchers point out.

Michele Riehle and his colleagues have bred generations of this subtype of Anopheles gambiae in the laboratory and discovered it was much more susceptible to Plasmodium falciparum than ever observed in species living inside the houses.

In light of this research, these scientists believe that this is a new subgroup of Anopheles mosquito that could be quite recent in evolution.

They also said that other adult specimens were to be caught in the wild for this research.

These researchers also urged a review of measures to control Anopheles mosquitoes.

According to latest statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) some progress has been made in the fight against this disease during the past decade with a decline of 781,000 deaths worldwide in 2009 against almost one million in 2000.

Some 90% of deaths from malaria occur in sub-Saharan Africa and mostly very young children.

Only the female Anopheles mosquito transmits plasmodium because it must feed on blood to produce eggs. It absorbs the parasite by biting an infected human or animal.

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