1. Blanford, S, B.H.K. Chan, N. Jenkins, D. Sim, R.J. Turner, A.F. Read, M.B. Thomas 2005. Fungal Pathogen Reduces potential for malaria transmission. Science 308: 1638 – 1641.
2. Scholte, E.J., B.G.J. Knols; W. Takken. 2006. An entomopathogenic fungus for control of adult African malaria mosquitoes. J.Invert. Pathol. 91: 43 – 49.
There are a lot of experiments going on with entomopathogenic fungi agents at laboratory level mostly.
I just answered a question about it to a friend in Romania Europe...
We really need to bring our lab findings to the field once of course the safety issues have been cleared. The scale being much different, the dosage are not similar and the exposure to public is an important risk factor to be taken care of indeed...
But again this is the stage that has to be implemented and tested further to confirm the real efficiency of the findings...
Another aspect is the prevention aspect. The question is just asked by someone else here already, and it makes sense too. Why not focus on community knowledge and awareness to strengthen behavioral change and reduce transmission, rather than going for the difficult way?
Dear Pierre, you comment above,
"Why not focus on community knowledge and awareness to strengthen behavioral change and reduce transmission".
This is an interesting viewpoint. I tend to be pessimistic about people's ability to change. So I think that, in most cases, changing people's behaviour is extremely difficult and expensive, and takes a long time. People engage in so many risky practices, even when they know the risks. And little children are the most at risk and the hardest to educate.
The Gates Foundation went for a pragmatic, simple solution to malaria control - they have invested millions of dollars in the pyrethroid-treated bed net approach in Africa. It has worked well to date. However, there are now official reports of pyrethroid resistance in Benin. So this strategy will slowly stop working from here on, as pyrethroid resistance develops in other countries.
So my question is: what practical alternatives do we have lined up as a replacement for thebed net approach ?
It seems to me that the best technology that I have read about is the use of black cloths impregnated with a sporulating entomopathogenic fungus such as Beauveria bassiana. The research by Blandford et al. and Scholte et al both showed that it works well in the field, despite both of them using M. anisoplieae, which is less pathogenic on mosquitoes than B.bassiana. As for the s afety aspects, there is little exposure by people, and B.bassiana is well established worldwide as a safe biocontrol agent. And the cost could be low.
This is very interesting indeed. There is a team at University Malaya faculty of science working on mosquitoes in Malaysia. The approach of research is more genetically based.
The issue of acquired resistance is an actual focus that need to be taken care of indeed. The consequences on management cost are obvious and would become a nightmare scenario as well. I m working on insecticide resistance management using entomopathogenic fungi like Beauveria bassiana on oil palm pests in Malaysia. Problems are encountered for tall palm trees in field. The mortality is low by 25/30%. I suggested a combination with selective pesticides to enhance the lethal ability of the formulations.
So in the case of the mosquitoes i m curious to ask the following.
Is there any large scale figure of an implementation of this in the field? Can you provide a specific exact figure if available? thanks a lot
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