New Variety Of Mosquitoes: Sounding An Alarm

Scientists have discovered a previously unknown type of mosquito variety in Africa ‎which is highly susceptible to malaria causing parasites and, unfortunately, where current ‎malaria control practices are obsolete. This has put the researchers worried about the ‎future concerns in dealing with the problem.‎

The researchers had spent four years collecting mosquitoes from water bodies near ‎villages located in Burkina Faso. They found a subtype variety of malaria causing ‎Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes that were very much different from any that were ‎collected before.‎ Their findings have been published in the journal Science.‎

Very unlike most of the mosquitoes that the researchers focused on, these mosquitoes live ‎outdoors instead of hanging around inside places where the human beings live.‎ Malaria transmission from mosquitoes to human beings occur mostly indoors, but with ‎these new mosquitoes, having malaria control efforts that are concentrated indoors may ‎prove ineffective.‎

An earlier control project in Nigeria during the 1970s resulted in a failure because the ‎genetically distinct outdoor-residing mosquitoes caused malarial transmission to endure ‎despite use of indoor based insecticides.‎

This unique A. gambiae subtype variety is significantly more susceptible to the ‎Plasmodium falciparum parasite which is the root cause for malaria. ‎The researchers are yet to ascertain whether the mosquitoes take blood meals from ‎human beings, and about the size of its home range.‎