For all the fears people harbour about falling victim to plane crashes or terrorism or even being bitten by a shark while swimming, there is one creature that consistently manages to kill more people than any other: the mosquito. Each year, the insect spreads diseases such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever that kill up to 750,000 people worldwide.
Researchers have been slowly making progress against malaria through a combination of developing drugs to prevent infection and finding ways to lessen the mosquito population in malaria-prone areas. But that progress is being threatened by a new drug-resistant strain of the disease that has become established in Southeast Asia and is spreading westward towards the subcontinent.
There are solid grounds to be concerned about this new development. While there are powerful drugs that remain capable of combating malaria, they must only be taken for short spans of time. As such, they provide a solution for visitors but not for the local population.
Short of finding new anti-malaria drugs – and there is news of an anti-malaria vaccine being ready within a year – the focus will have to move instead to eliminating mosquitoes in the environment by using powerful insecticides such as DDT, and that comes at its own cost.
