Mosquito News and Research

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Dengue fever vaccine 'may be in sight,' Reuters reports

Reuters reports on efforts to develop a vaccine for dengue fever, writing that "victory over ... the intensely painful 'breakbone fever' ... may be in sight." Paris-based firm Sanofi "hopes for positive results in September from a key trial among children in Thailand that would set it on course to market a shot in 2015, which would prevent an estimated 100 million cases of dengue infection each year," the news service writes.

7 Jun 2012

Neighborhood immunity has a role in determining risk of dengue infection

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have found evidence of a role for neighborhood immunity in determining risk of dengue infection.

29 May 2012

MIT researchers engineer new jet-injection system

MIT researchers have engineered a device that delivers a tiny, high-pressure jet of medicine through the skin without the use of a hypodermic needle. The device can be programmed to deliver a range of doses to various depths - an improvement over similar jet-injection systems that are now commercially available.

25 May 2012

ITM in Antwerp receives Gates Foundation grant for malaria research

The Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine has received a $3m grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for malaria research. They will use it to attack malaria mosquitoes from a new angle.

25 May 2012

Biologists engineer algae to produce potential candidates for malarial vaccine

Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have succeeded in engineering algae to produce potential candidates for a vaccine that would prevent transmission of the parasite that causes malaria, an achievement that could pave the way for the development of an inexpensive way to protect billions of people from one of the world's most prevalent and debilitating diseases. Initial proof-of-principle experiments suggest that such a vaccine could prevent malaria transmission.

17 May 2012

New insecticide-treated bodysuit can fight malaria

A Cornell University scientist and designer from Africa have together created a fashionable hooded bodysuit embedded at the molecular level with insecticides for warding off mosquitoes infected with malaria, a disease estimated to kill 655,000 people annually on the continent.

9 May 2012

Bumped kinase inhibitors may control malaria

Over 200 million people contract malaria each year, and according to the World Health Organization, an estimated 655,000 people died from malaria in 2010. Malaria is caused by the parasite Plasmodium, which is transmitted to humans through mosquito bites. More effective control of malaria will require the development of new tools to prevent new infections.

9 May 2012

New improved mosquito mass rearing technique

The requirement for efficient mosquito mass-rearing technology has been one of the major obstacles preventing the large scale application of the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) against mosquitoes.

7 May 2012

Dengue fever costs Puerto Rico nearly $38M a year, study shows

"The costs of treating and coping with dengue fever in Puerto Rico total nearly $38 million a year, a new study," published Wednesday in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, finds, according to U.S. News & World Report.

5 May 2012

Tips to help homeowners tick-proof their yards

For more than 250,000 Americans, the bite of a deer tick meant the start of a life changing disease. With record warm temperatures and the start of May's National Lyme Disease Awareness Month, Mosquito Squad is on watch and has six tips to help homeowners tick-proof their yards.

2 May 2012

Financial Times examines Cuban company selling larvicides for malaria control in Africa

Though "[m]ost international support credited with the recent decline in malaria in Africa has been channeled to providing bednets, diagnostics and drugs, a Cuban company called Labiofam is marketing bacterial larvicides in Africa to help fight the disease," the Financial Times reports.

30 Apr 2012

Opinion pieces examine malaria fight in recognition of World Malaria Day

Wednesday, April 25, marked World Malaria Day, which this year had the theme "Sustain Gains, Save Lives: Invest in Malaria." The following opinion pieces address the fight against malaria.

27 Apr 2012

Report identifies strategies necessary to improve marketplace for LLINs

The universal coverage campaign for bed nets succeeded in dramatically extending access to these life-saving products, though recent gains may be in jeopardy unless rapid action is taken. Over 560 million long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs) are required through 2015 alone to achieve and maintain universal coverage in Africa, at a total global cost of $2.4 billion.

26 Apr 2012

World Malaria Day observed

The 25th of April was observed as World Malaria Day. According to Ray Chambers, the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for malaria, there has been a marked progress in reducing malaria deaths using bed nets, insecticide spray and drugs. He cited a World Health Organization report in December which used figures from 2010, saying malaria deaths had decreased by over one-third. Since then, he said at a news conference Monday, the world has delivered 160 million additional bed nets “so we expect the number of deaths to be much less now.”

25 Apr 2012

USAID's Shah urges cooperation to improve child health, survival

"Seeing a child die from pneumonia, diarrhea or a mosquito bite is simply unimaginable to most parents. But that is the sad reality for many families each day," USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah writes in a Huffington Post Blog opinion piece, noting, "Last year over seven million children under five died of largely preventable causes."

24 Apr 2012

Sri Lankan health officials report increase in number of dengue cases in first quarter compared to 2011

Sri Lankan health authorities "have reported a three-fold increase in the number of recorded dengue fever cases in the first quarter of this year," IRIN reports.

12 Apr 2012

Drug resistance woes hamper anti-malaria fight

Researchers have found that there is increasing resistance to the front-line treatments for malaria. A pair of studies published in The Lancet and the journal Science showed how the disease is moving fast into new territory and identified a region of the parasite's genome that may be responsible for mutating in order to survive.

5 Apr 2012

Dengue infection makes mosquito's blood feeding more efficient

Mosquitoes infected with dengue virus experience an array of changes in the activity of genes and associated functions of their salivary glands, and these changes may lead to increased virus transmission, according to a recent study led by George Dimopoulos, Ph.D., of the Malaria Research Institute and Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

31 Mar 2012

Infection with dengue virus turns on feeding-related genes in mosquitoes

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have, for the first time, shown that infection with dengue virus turns on mosquito genes that makes them hungrier and better feeders, and therefore possibly more likely to spread the disease to humans.

30 Mar 2012

P. falciparum colonizes America via two separate introduction routes: Study

The malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, originates from Africa, and is found on every continent. Over 200 million people are infected every year from Africa to Asia, as well as in America and the Middle East. How did it spread to the entire planet? It is not entirely clear how it conquered the New World. Scientists from the UMR Migevec and their partners have recently shown in the journal PNAS that the pathogen was introduced by ship during the slave trade.

29 Mar 2012