Mosquito News and Research

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New therapeutic targets for malaria

Scientists working on a common antimicrobial compound with antimalarial activity have discovered a range of new therapeutic strategies to combat malaria.

10 Dec 2008

Vaccine against malaria could be ready in 5 years

Malaria kills more than one million people every year so the news that an effective vaccine could be available within five years is more than welcome.

9 Dec 2008

New vaccine theory aimed at ticks and mosquitoes to prevent disease transmission

Most successful vaccines and drugs rely on protecting humans or animals by blocking certain bacteria from growing in their systems.

3 Dec 2008

Genomics and bioinformatics could be the future in battle against malaria

Malaria, one of the oldest diseases known to man, has shown no signs of slowing down as it ages.

26 Nov 2008

Use of insecticide-treated bed nets increases, but 90 million African children still exposed to malaria

The use of insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) to protect children from malaria has risen six-fold in the past seven years, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust.

18 Nov 2008

Airport malaria

In a global world, significant factors affect the spread of infectious diseases, including international trade, air travel and globalized food production. "Airport malaria" is a term coined by researchers to explain the more recent spread of malaria to areas such as the United States and Europe, which some scientists credit to warmer climate changes.

11 Nov 2008

The smaller the mozzie the nastier the bite

Experts have found that the smaller the mosquito the more likely that it is infected with viruses which cause human diseases.

10 Nov 2008

Smaller mosquitoes more likely to be infected with viruses that cause diseases in humans

An entomologist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, a division of the new UI Institute for Natural Resource Sustainability, says smaller mosquitoes are more likely to be infected with viruses that cause diseases in humans.

4 Nov 2008

Important steps towards the development of a human vaccine against malaria

Every day 2,000 children die from malaria in Africa alone. The infection is transmitted from human to human by biting mosquitoes and remains one of the world's most devastating diseases. Despite many years of effort a vaccine is still not available but is urgently needed, if we are to make an impact on this enormous problem.

31 Oct 2008

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide $168.7 million for malaria vaccine research

Bill Gates announced today that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will provide $168.7 million to PATH for its Malaria Vaccine Initiative to develop vaccines for malaria -- a disease that kills thousands of African children every day.

25 Sep 2008

'Dodgy dossier' partly to blame for failure of war against malaria in the tropics

The war against malaria in tropical countries was fought and lost in the 20th Century on the basis of faulty intelligence, a 'dodgy dossier' which argued that the same methods used to tackle the disease in temperate countries would also work in the tropics.

15 Sep 2008

Land clearing and deforestation mean more mosquito-borne diseases

Australian researchers are blaming land clearing and deforestation for the potential increase in mosquito-borne diseases.

8 Sep 2008

Genetically manipulated virus could prevent mosquitoes from transmitting malaria, study says

A genetically manipulated version of densovirus could prevent Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes from transmitting malaria, according to a study published last week in PLoS Pathogens, the New York Times reports.

26 Aug 2008

Mosquitoes stay away from DEET because they hate the smell!

According to scientists in the U.S. the reason why the insect repellent DEET works so well is because mosquitoes don't like the smell.

25 Aug 2008

Malaria researchers discover new mosquito virus

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Malaria Research Institute have identified a previously unknown virus that is infectious to Anopheles gambiae-the mosquito primarily responsible for transmitting malaria.

24 Aug 2008

Mosquitoes smell DEET and stay away

Spray yourself with a DEET-based insect repellent and the mosquitoes will leave you alone. But why? They flee because of their intense dislike for the smell of the chemical repellent and not because DEET jams their sense of smell, report researchers at the University of California, Davis.

18 Aug 2008

Yemen Times examines HIV/AIDS surveillance, discrimination related to disease in country

Although Yemen -- which has recorded 2,431 HIV/AIDS cases -- is considered one of the countries with the lowest number of people living with the disease worldwide, some organizations, including the country's National AIDS Control Program, say that the numbers likely do not accurately reflect the true number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the country, the Yemen Times reports.

13 Aug 2008

The rapid spread of West Nile virus in North America described

The rapid spread of West Nile virus in North America over the past decade is likely to have long-lasting ecological consequences throughout the continent, according to an article in the November issue of BioScience.

12 Aug 2008

A new target for malaria drugs

The malaria parasite has waged a successful guerrilla war against the human immune system for eons, but a study in this week's Journal of Biological Chemistry has exposed one of the tricks malaria uses to hide from the immune proteins, which may aid in future drug development.

4 Aug 2008

EPA funds Rutgers West Nile virus research

Rutgers University's Cook Campus is buzzing with the news of a recent $750,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant that will fund important and innovative research about biodiversity and West Nile Virus. Biodiversity, or the amount and variety of plants and animals in a geographic region, has become a major topic of interest in recent years.

31 Jul 2008