Mosquito genetic test may be malaria ‘game changer’

Scientists have successfully wiped out a population of malariatransmitting mosquitoes by using a radical form of genetic engineering to render the females infertile – in the most advanced and largest ever test of the technology to fight the disease.

As well as bringing fresh hope in the fight against one of the world’s biggest killers, the study lays the foundations for further trials of gene-drive technology, which could mean self-destroying mosquitoes being released into the wild within 10 years. Despite the reduction in malaria over recent decades, there were still 229m cases of the disease in 2019, and 409,000 deaths.