(NewsCore) - Scientists have come up with a new approach to controlling malaria -focusing on killing the parasite inside mosquitoes rather than trying to kill the entire bug, according to research published Thursday.
Scientists in the US and Great Britain have genetically engineered a fungus that can kill the parasite inside the mosquito that transmits malaria. The insect does not have to ingest the fungus. It only has to touch it for it to penetrate its body.
"So the fungus acts like a little hypodermic syringe, and when it's in the blood of the insect, the fungus then produces the antimalarial protein, and within a couple of days it basically cures the mosquito of malaria," study author Raymond St. Leger, an entomology professor at the University of Maryland, told National Public Radio.
The research was published Thursday in the journal Science.
Scientists have long searched for a way to protect humans from contracting malaria using insecticides and other toxins. But none has been terribly effective, in part because mosquitoes develop resistance to pesticides quickly.
As a result, there are still 240 million cases every year, in 100 different countries around the globe.
The researchers compared three groups of mosquitoes and found the bugs hit with the genetically-engineered fungus were far less likely to develop malaria parasites.
The malaria parasite was found in the salivary glands of 25 percent of the mosquitoes sprayed with the transgenic fungus, compared to 87 percent of those sprayed with an unmodified strain of the fungus, and to 94 percent of those that were not sprayed at all.
St. Leger said the group wants to begin field testing the fungus in Africa as soon as possible.
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