Burkina Faso says no to Bill Gates’ plan of creating modified species of mosquitoes

In a statement published on Friday, officials urged Target Malaria, the initiative’s principal NGO, to halt “all activities” in the nation. “All samples will be destroyed according to a strict protocol,” Samuel Pare, chief official at the higher education and research ministry, said in a Friday statement. The move is part of a larger crackdown on foreign-backed NGOs functioning under the present junta.

The research, which began in Burkina Faso in 2019, released its first swarm of genetically modified male mosquitoes in the hamlet of Bana, a tiny settlement of around 1,000 people in the country’s west. These mosquitoes were developed to limit the reproductive rate of malaria-carrying female mosquitoes, with the long-term objective of reducing the transmission of the illness that kills hundreds of thousands of people each year in Africa. Since its first release, the program has expanded its study to other locations, most recently unleashing new batches of mutated mosquitoes only days before the government’s abrupt order to suspend operations. As reported by Bloomberg, campaigns in Africa accuse Target Malaria researchers of worsening the spread.