African scientist could wipe out malaria by editing mosquito DNA
African scientist could wipe out malaria by editing mosquito DNA
Tags: Africa, Gene drive, Gene editing, MalariaNimi Princewill, CNN, 2023.
Malaria is a leading cause of death in Burkina Faso, where nearly all of the West African nation’s 22 million inhabitants, especially children, are at risk of the disease, according to the World Health Organization. Malaria killed nearly 19,000 people in Burkina Faso in 2021, the most recent data from the WHO regional office for Africa showed. The disease is also one of the main causes of death in the wider African region, which shoulders the world’s largest malaria burden. Abdoulaye Diabate faced a life-threatening bout of malaria when he was just five years old. Diabate narrowly survived the mosquito-borne disease, but cousins ages three and four were not as fortunate. Diabate, who now heads medical entomology and parasitology at Burkina Faso’s Research Institute in Health Sciences, is developing an innovative technique that could potentially wipe out malaria-transmitting mosquito species by altering their genes.