Gene Drives For Malaria Control And Elimination

There is notable ongoing research and prioritization of gene drive technology in Africa for Malaria control and elimination. Currently, there is ongoing gene drive mosquito research in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Uganda led by the Target Malaria consortium. While laboratory research has demonstrated that gene drive techniques are effective in altering the Anopheles mosquito populations so that they can no longer transmit Malaria parasites and crashing entire mosquito populations, this research still has a long way to go in testing the effectiveness of gene drive mosquitoes in controlling Malaria. Initiated in 2018, Target Malaria’s work in Uganda is led by the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI). The work in Uganda is still in early stages, focusing on entomological mosquito collections from field sites on islands within Lake Victoria and mainland sites. In Burkina Faso, Target Malaria’s initiated exploratory gene drive research in in 2012, led by the Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé (IRSS) in Bobo-Dioulasso. In 2019, the team released genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes in Bana village. The mosquitoes were genetically-modified to be sterile, which means they died without any offspring. These were not gene drive mosquitoes, and their release was not to test these as a vector control tool.

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