AK&M 08 November 2024 11:21
An international group of scientists from Russia, Mali, Germany, Lithuania, and Israel has been conducting experimental studies for several years to control the population of malaria mosquitoes in Mali, one of the countries of West Africa where hundreds of thousands of people die from malaria every year. Researchers have found an approach that has reduced the number of carriers of this dangerous disease by 10 times. Scientists use toxic sugar as their main tool. The results of their work are published in the journal “Malaria Journal” (Q1).
– Great strides have been made in the fight against malaria in the world, but, nevertheless, hundreds of millions of people are infected with it every year, hundreds of thousands of them die. The largest number of victims is among preschool children,” says Roman Yakovlev, one of the study participants, a scientist at Tomsk State University and AltSU. – This problem is especially relevant for the countries of West Africa. For several years, our international team of scientists has been conducting experimental research in Mali. The idea of the project was formulated by the innovative Malaria Vector Control Center operating at the University of Bamako.
One of the methods tested by scientists gave a good result – it allowed to reduce the number of malaria–carrying mosquitoes from one person to another by 10 times. The essence of the approach is to organize a network of stations in the villages of Mali. There were traps filled with lures in the form of toxic sugar.
– All mosquitoes, especially females, whose environmental burden is higher due to the fact that they reproduce offspring, in addition to blood, require additional nutrition in the form of carbohydrates, – explains Roman Yakovlev. – In nature, mosquitoes feed on the nectar of plants. As part of the experiment, they were offered another “dessert” – toxic sugar. Unlike traditional methods, such as insecticide pollination, it acts selectively and does not adversely affect other parts of the ecosystem. Volunteers from the villages also took part in the experiments.
Comparative analysis showed that in villages with traps, the number of mosquitoes was much lower than in control settlements where bait was not used. The data obtained by the researchers will form the basis of recommendations to be developed by the World Health Organization.
The participants of the international scientific group plan to transfer their research to regions of Africa where other seasonal mosquito activity and other types of malaria–carrying mosquitoes are present.
We should add that TSU scientists are comprehensively investigating the problem of malaria infection and trying to solve it using different approaches, including using genetic technologies. Scientists from African countries are also involved in the research, among them a citizen of Mali, a geneticist Mohamed Kader.
One of the recent results of large-scale research conducted under the guidance of a scientist from TSU and the Polytechnic University of Virginia Igor Sharakhov, the answer to the question was: when and how did malaria mosquitoes appear in Siberia? Thanks to the sequencing of the genome of more than a thousand individuals belonging to 13 species of malaria mosquitoes, geneticists have managed to solve a 20 million-year-old mystery.
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