We need new ways to fight mosquitoes. Dangerous species are spreading to new parts of the world, bringing diseases like malaria and dengue with them. Our old weapons, such as bed nets and insecticides, don’t work well anymore: Mosquitoes have evolved to resist and evade them.
The repellents can last for a year and researchers hope they will be sold for just a few dollars each — about the same price as a bed net — so that families in low-income countries can buy them.
Next, for outdoors: A gizmo with the clunky name of Attractive Targeted Sugar Bait, or ATSB, is a flat packet about the size of a sheet of looseleaf paper that is filled with pouches of a sugary liquid laced with a new kind of insecticide. The bait is sealed under a membrane thin enough for a mosquito to drink through.
Every mosquito, male or female, needs to feed on sugar. ATSBs lures them with fruit syrup, then poisons them. ATSBs are hung about six feet off the ground (out of range of children and goats) on the outside of people’s homes and in places where they gather outdoors.
For both inside and outside, there’s another novel experiment, which makes use of ivermectin, a drug lots of people have heard of. Ivermectin is an endectocide, a medicine usually taken to kill parasites such as head lice. But there is evidence that it may also kill mosquitoes that bite humans who were recently treated with it.
The researchers are waiting for data to see how much this drove down malaria. It’s helpful that people are already familiar with ivermectin, which is safe and cheap (although with delivery, this method costs about $2.75 per person per year). As a bonus, ivermectin significantly reduces cases of scabies, head lice and worms.
