Bill Gates teams up with British ‘super mosquitoes’ in battle against malaria

LAWTON: American billionaire business magnate Bill Gates has endorsed the potential deployment of British-engineered super mosquitoes in the global fight against transmission of malaria.

According to the media reports, the initiative, backed by Gates, aimed to employ the genetically modified mosquitoes created by UK biotech company Oxitec to counter the disease’s devastating impact, which was claiming over half a million lives annually.

About 10 years ago, the African country of Djibouti had nearly succeeded in wiping out malaria—then, the disease roared back. The cause? A highly invasive urban mosquito called Anopheles stephensi.

Thanks to companies like @Oxitec, the story doesn’t have to end there:… pic.twitter.com/ewTTrDcCHt

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) August 15, 2023

The media reports said that Oxitec employed genetic modification to render the insects into biological insecticides. Through the manipulation of their genetic makeup, the British-engineered male mosquitoes would possess a crucial trait: a gene that would prevent the survival of female offspring into adulthood. Since only female mosquitoes transmit malaria through their bites, the alteration was a pivotal aspect.

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Operationalized in the wild, male mosquitoes from Oxitec mated with their female counterparts, leading to the demise of all female offsprings. This approach resulted in the survival of male offspring, which were incapable of spreading the disease via biting. The surviving males flew around and mated with other wild females, which might signficantly decrease global mosquito population and curb malaria transmission, as reported by the media.

Meanwhile, Gates emphasised the potential of the strategy, describing it as having the capacity to “dramatically” reduce mosquito numbers and the spread of malaria. Furthermore, homeowners could acquire kits to cultivate anti-malaria mosquitoes in their own gardens. Extensive testing has confirmed their harmlessness to the environment and human beings.

The media reported that Gates noted that more than one billion genetically modified mosquitoes have already been released worldwide, without any reported negative effects. Notably, in Brazil, these mosquitoes have contributed to the mitigation of dengue fever, another mosquito-borne disease claiming tens of thousands of lives annually.

As per the media reports, in the coming year, the approach is set to be introduced in Djibouti, East Africa, to counteract a rise in malaria cases, which escalated from 27 cases in 2012 to 73,000 in 2020. The region’s escalating infection rate, affecting over 7 per cent of the population, underscored the urgency of the intervention. Various African countries, including Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana, also grappled with mosquito-related challenges.

The Daily Star reported that Bill Gates commended Oxitec for developing a potentially transformative solution to mosquito control. He compared the traditional approach to a game of “cat and mouse,” where humans devise interventions to counteract mosquito-borne diseases, only to have mosquitoes adapt and resist these methods. In contrast, Oxitec aimed to shift the paradigm to a “mosquito versus mosquito” scenario, employing modified insects to counteract their disease-spreading counterparts.

Bill Gates acknowledged the necessity for a multitude of innovative tools to combat malaria effectively. He expressed enthusiasm for Oxitec’s technology, viewing it as instrumental in aiding Djibouti, as well as other parts of Africa, in their pursuit of malaria eradication.