Out for blood: the fight against the planet’s deadliest creature

The deadliest creature on the planet is not a great white shark, a starved lion, an enraged hippopotamus or a poisonous snake – it’s the minute mosquito. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mosquitoes kill millions of people each year, with malaria – the most deadly mosquito-borne disease – responsible for more than half of these fatalities. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has noted: “Malaria’s economic impact is estimated to cost billions of dollars in lost productivity every year.”