Mosquito News and Research

RSS

Scientists use climate variables and vegetation indices to predict and mitigate Dengue epidemics

Dengue Fever (DF) and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) are the most important vector-borne viral diseases in the World. Around 50-100 million cases appear each year putting 2.5 billion people at risk of suffering this debilitating and sometimes fatal disease.

5 Jun 2009

Second death from mosquito-borne disease prompts calls for more spraying programs

The recent death of a second person from Murray Valley Encephalitis (MVE) in Northern Australia has prompted calls for an increase in mosquito control spraying programs.

28 May 2009

Methylene blue in combo with new malaria drugs curbs the spread of malaria parasites

New combinations of agents based on the oldest synthetic malaria drug, the methylene blue stain, can curb the spread of malaria parasites and make a significant contribution to the long-term eradication called for by the international "Roll Back Malaria Initiative."

20 May 2009

Banned toxic chemicals in Australian everyday products

Australia's leading consumer advocacy organisation CHOICE says an investigation has revealed that many chemicals freely available in Australia are no longer registered in Europe because of safety concerns.

13 May 2009

Money from Bill and Melinda Gates will help beat Dengue fever in Australia

The University of Queensland (UQ) has won a grant of $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight dengue and other mosquito-borne diseases.

11 May 2009

Australian scientists win funds for new research

One bold idea - that's all it takes - such is the creed of a bold initiative fostered by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and once again Bill Gates is putting his hand in his pocket for the good of mankind.

11 May 2009

New research nets the true economic costs of dengue fever

Researchers at Brandeis, in collaboration with several other institutions worldwide, have pinpointed for the first time the multi-country economic costs of dengue fever, the endemic and epidemic mosquito-borne illness that is a rapidly growing public health problem in tropical and sub-tropical countries.

7 May 2009

Countries move toward more sustainable ways to roll back malaria

The United Nations Environment Programme and the World Health Organization, in partnership with the Global Environment Facility, today announced a rejuvenated international effort to combat malaria with an incremental reduction of reliance on the synthetic pesticide DDT.

6 May 2009

Dengue fever may be more of a worry to Australians than swine flu

For the last week or so much of the world's media has been gripped by the new influenza A H1N1 (swine flu) virus which has dominated the headlines everywhere.

6 May 2009

Australia's Dengue risk driven by human adaptation to climate change

'Drought-proofing' Australia's urban regions by installing large domestic water tanks may enable the dengue mosquito Aedes aegypti to regain its foothold across the country and expand its range of possible infections, according to a new study published May 5 in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

4 May 2009

DNA "barcodes" used to map mosquito species in West Africa that spread lymphatic filariasis

New biotechnologies that allow scientists to quickly and accurately distinguish species based on a simple DNA analysis are being creatively deployed for the first time in the war against a major global disease.

29 Apr 2009

Welcome news on Dengue fever

The news that scientists in the United States have identified host factors which are critical to Dengue virus infection will be particularly welcome in tropical northern Queensland, which has suffered one of the worse Dengue fever outbreaks in decades.

26 Apr 2009

Scientists identify dozens of proteins the dengue fever virus depends upon

By painstakingly silencing genes one at a time, scientists at Duke University Medical Center have identified dozens of proteins the dengue fever virus depends upon to grow and spread among mosquitoes and humans.

22 Apr 2009

New Dengue virus discovery could lead to development of anti-dengue drugs

Doctors have no specific drugs to treat dengue fever, a viral illness spread by mosquitoes that sickens 50 million to 100 million people worldwide each year. Instead, the only treatments they can recommend for this painful and sometimes fatal illness (20,000 deaths globally each year) are fluids, rest and non-aspirin pain and fever reducers.

22 Apr 2009

An African child dies every 30 seconds from Malaria

An African child dies every 30 seconds from this same disease; nearly a half billion people become ill because of it. About 1 million children under the age of 5 die each year from malaria -- a disease that is entirely preventable.

16 Apr 2009

Discovery of variations in resistance to sulfadoxine across Africa

Researchers have discovered that malaria parasites in east and west Africa carry different resistance mutations, which suggests that the effectiveness of sulfadoxine as an antimalarial drug may vary across Africa.

13 Apr 2009

Dengue in Queensland on the decline at last - or is it?

During the current Dengue epidemic in the tropical north of Queensland, health authorities found more than 50,000 potential mosquito breeding sites in Cairns alone.

13 Apr 2009

Coartem tablets approved in U.S. to treat malaria

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Coartem tablets (artemether and lumefantrine) for the treatment of acute, uncomplicated malaria infections in adults and children weighing at least five kilograms (approximately 11 pounds).

8 Apr 2009

Killing older mosquitoes is a more sustainable way to control malaria

Killing only older mosquitoes could be a more sustainable way of controlling malaria, and has the potential to lead to evolution-proof insecticides that never become obsolete, according to an article in this week's issue of PLoS Biology.

6 Apr 2009

Insecticide spraying targeted at mosquito larvae can help control malaria in urban areas, study says

The use of insecticide to kill mosquitoes during the larval stage of development can control malaria effectively in urban areas when combined with existing malaria interventions, such as insecticide-treated nets, according to a study published Tuesday in PLoS One, ANI/Thaindian News reports.

31 Mar 2009