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What Do You Get When You Release GM Mosquitoes? 
Maybe NEW Anopheles Mosquitoes?

From Patricia Doyle
2-12-11
 
Hello Jeff - Many people, like myself, have been very worried since the release of genetically modified mosquitoes in Malaysia and Africa.
 
Could the release of modified mosquitoes enable new types of mosquitoes to develop? No one can say for sure, however, we are now
faced with a new type of Anopheles mosquito and question need to be addressed and answered.
 
Patty
 
 
MALARIA, NEW ANOPHELES MOSQUITO - WEST AFRICA
**********************************************
 
Date: Tue 3 Feb 2011
Source: BBC News [edited]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12352565
New mosquito type raises concern
--------------------------------
Scientists have identified a new type of mosquito. It is a subgroup of _Anopheles gambiae_, the insect species responsible for most of the malaria transmission in Africa. Researchers tell Science magazine that this new mosquito appears to be very susceptible to the parasite that causes the disease -- which raises concern. The type may have evaded classification until now because it rests away from human dwellings where most scientific collections tend to be made.
 
Dr Michelle Riehle, from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, and colleagues made their discovery in Burkina Faso, where they gathered mosquitoes from ponds and puddles near villages over a period of 4 years. When they examined these insects in the lab, they found many to be genetically distinct from any _A. gambiae_ insects previously recorded.
 
The team grew generations of the unique subtype in the lab to assess their susceptibility to the malaria parasite and this revealed them to be especially vulnerable, more so than indoor-resting insect types.
 
But Pasteur team-member Dr Ken Vernick cautioned that these mosquitoes' significance for malaria transmission had yet to be established. "We are in a zone where we need to do some footwork in the field to identify a means to capture the wild adults of the outdoor-resting sub-group," he told BBC News. "Then we can test them and measure their level of infection with malaria, and then we can put a number on how much -- if any -- of the actual malaria transmission this outdoor-resting subgroup is responsible for."
 
The researchers report that the new subgroup could be quite a recent development in mosquito evolution and urge further investigation to understand better the consequences for malaria control.
 
They also emphasise the need for more diverse collection strategies. The subtype is likely to have been missed, they say, because of the widespread practice of collecting mosquitoes for study inside houses. In one sense this has made sense -- after biting, mosquitoes need to rest up and if they do this inside dwellings, the confined area will make them an easier target for trapping. However, the method is also likely to introduce a bias into the populations under study.
 
Commenting on the study, Dr Gareth Lycett, a malaria researcher from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK, said it was an interesting advance that might have important implications for tackling malaria. Larvae are collected from pools of water for study.
 
 
"To control malaria in an area you need to know what mosquitoes are passing on the disease in that district, and to do that you need sampling methods that record all significant disease vectors," Lycett told BBC News. "You need to determine what they feed on, when and where, and whether they are infectious. And where non-house-resting mosquitoes are contributing to disease transmission, devise effective control methods that will complement bed-net usage and house spraying. A recent 12M euro [16M USD] multinational project (AvecNET), funded by the European Union, and led by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has the specific aims of doing just this."
 
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are more than 200 million cases of malaria worldwide each year, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, most of them in Africa.
 
Malaria is caused by plasmodium parasites. The parasites are spread to people through the bites of infected female anopheles mosquitoes.
 
[byline: Jonathan Amos,science correspondent, BBC News]
--
communicated by:
ProMED-mail
promed@promedmail.org
This news report refers to a paper published on 4 Feb 2011 in Science (Riehle MM, et al. A cryptic subgroup of _Anopheles gambiae_ is highly susceptible to human malaria parasites. Science. 2011;331:596-8). The study was performed in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and shows that sampling mosquitoes by collecting of indoor resting mosquitoes alone fails to estimate the contribution to malaria transmission by outdoor resting mosquitoes. This is important, as pointed out in the study, because previous malaria control strategies using indoor residual spraying with insecticides will not kill outdoor resting mosquitoes.
 
By sampling mosquito larvae the study succeeded in identifying a new subgroup of _Anopheles gambiae_ mosquitoes, which was found to be a highly effective vector of _Plasmodium falciparum_. The study also helps to explain why malaria control using impregnated bed nets are effective where indoor residual spraying has failed in this part of the world.
 
A map of the study area is found in the supplementary material to the paper in Science. - Mod.EP
 
The interactive HealthMap/ProMED map for Burkina Faso, West Africa, is available at http://healthmap.org/r/01a6 - CopyEd.EJP
 
 
Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at:http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php Also my new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
 
Benjamin Franklin said, "They that  can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve  neither liberty nor safety." 
 
  
 
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