United States: Most of the approximately 600,000 people killed by malaria parasites each year are children, and they catch it when female mosquitoes drink their blood.
At present, the main goal is to eliminate mosquitoes using insecticide instead of treating them for malaria.
Scientists at Harvard University have made a discovery: two drugs work when applied to the legs of infected insects. Coating the nets with the drug cocktail is where we are heading in the future, BBC News reported.
Beyond Insecticides
The main mosquitoes that transfer malaria are active at night, so using a bed net to sleep has proven highly effective in preventing malaria.
It is recommended that children living in at-risk malaria areas receive protective vaccinations.
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Drug-Treated Nets to Stop Malaria Transmission
Nets protect you physically, and they also contain chemicals that kill mosquitoes that visit your nets.
Many countries have seen mosquitoes develop resistance to insecticides, which means insecticides kill insects less effectively than they once did.
Mosquito’s Nighttime Role
According to the researcher Dr Alexandra Probst from Harvard, “We haven’t really tried to kill parasites directly in the mosquito before this, because we were just killing the mosquito, BBC News reported.
The researchers looked at the DNA of malaria to search for ways the disease can be attacked when it infects mosquitoes.
From a large number of possible drugs, they selected just 22 to focus on. Researchers tested these ideas by feeding female mosquitoes blood containing malaria.