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Sunday Morning News

Researchers Hope to Stop Malaria at its Source

Aired July 16, 2000 - 9:24 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Malaria isn't a disease you hear much about these days in the U.S., but every year, millions die from it. Now researchers may be on their way to preventing the disease by stopping it at its source: the mosquito.

Details now from CNN's Margaret Lowrie.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARGARET LOWRIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Not just a backyard nuisance, mosquitoes can be killers if they carry the parasite that causes malaria. But the mosquito may have met its match at the Imperial College in London. Researchers there have created the first transgenic mosquito by successfully inserting a harmless new gene into the female mosquito.

The next step, scientists say, will be injecting other genes in an attempt to destroy the mosquito's ability to spread malaria.

PROF. ANDREA CRISANTI, IMPERIAL COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: You can manipulate the gene that allow mosquito to discriminate targets, for example, genes that are involved in odor recognition, that allow mosquito to prefer a human being rather than animals or the opposite.

LOWRIE: In other words, the mosquito could be genetically programmed to sting animals instead of people. Animals cannot contract malaria, but every year, some 2.7 million people die from it, at least a million of them children. Most cases are in Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Central and South America, and in South and Southeast Asia.

While the female mosquitoes spread malaria, the disease is carried by a parasite in the mosquito's stinger. Scientists say gene manipulation could also be used to create sterile males to lower the mosquito population, or to alter mosquitoes to prevent the parasite from living in them.

Some fear that, in turn, could create a resistant parasite.

CHRISTOPHER CURTIS, LONDON SCHOOL OF TROPICAL DISEASES: If you put those genes for blocking the malaria parasite into a mosquito, there will be a strong selection pressure on the population of malaria parasites to evolve to evade that blockage that you've put in. LOWRIE: Until now, efforts to combat the disease have relied largely on preventive drugs, insecticides, and the elimination of swampy breeding grounds. Researchers say transgenic mosquitoes could be released into the wild in the next six years.

Margaret Lowrie, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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