Gene drives and Africa’s battle against malaria

As malaria cases rise, and the effectiveness of current methods begins to fall, the WHO’s target of reducing the global malaria burden by 90% by 2030 will not be met. It is critical for new and resilient treatment, prevention, and control methods to be developed and integrated into current strategies. Target Malaria is a not-for-profit research consortium aiming to develop ‘cost-effective and sustainable genetic technologies to modify mosquitoes and reduce malaria transmission’ that would work alongside current anti-malaria efforts. They are pioneering research into genetically programmed mosquitoes, which when released into the wild to mate, reproduce offspring that either produce fewer female mosquitoes or are unable to transmit malaria parasites.

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