Those registered in 2023 were concentrated in African countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Pregnant women and children under 5 years of age are at increased risk of contracting this disease caused by the parasite. Plasmodium which is transmitted through the bites of female mosquitoes Anopheles.
In Kenya, significant progress has been made in reducing the spread of , especially in the last decade, during which the national incidence of the disease has decreased by 50%. This success can be attributed to various measures, such as indoor fumigation with residual insecticides, mass distribution of mosquito nets, and adoption of WHO-recommended vaccines. However, malaria remains endemic in the region. According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), due to factors such as altitude, rainfall and temperature, 75% of Kenya’s population is at risk of contracting malaria.
“The high burden of malaria in Africa, exacerbated by climate change, underscores the urgent need for innovative solutions such as genetically modified mosquitoes,” said Helen Jamet, Deputy Director of Malaria Vector Control at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Following a feasibility study carried out by Imperial College London and (KEMRI), the African country is resource-ready and suitable to use (MG) technology to reduce the spread of malaria. However, its application is yet to be confirmed. Is this the missing piece to achieving zero malaria cases in Kenya, Africa and the rest of the world?
What are genetically modified mosquitoes?
Genetically modified mosquitoes are versions of wild mosquitoes with one or two genes introduced into their DNA. These mosquitoes are mass produced in laboratories by implanting genes that are not naturally present in the mosquito.
“These modifications are designed to achieve two main objectives: reduce the number of mosquitoes by causing them to produce non-viable offspring or make mosquitoes incapable of transmitting diseases by interrupting the life cycle of pathogens such as the malaria parasite,” explains Jamet.
How do they work?
There are two kinds of technology. The first is called “gene drive technology”, or targeted technology [gene drive technology en inglés]and is designed to spread a genetic trait in a local population of mosquitoes. For example, it may be aimed at transmitting genetic traits that reduce the disease-spreading ability of a mosquito population in an area, making female mosquitoes less able to spread disease, or reducing the number of females in the population.
Then there is the second type, known as self-limiting genetic technology. Neil Morrison, Chief Strategy Officer at Oxitec, a biotechnology company that creates genetically modified insects to control them and improve food security and public health, explains: “The goal of this technology is to release non-biting male mosquitoes to mate with local females that spread diseases. The females of their offspring cannot survive, so within a few generations after they start releasing these friendly male mosquitoes, the number of females decreases, and therefore the mosquito population plummets.”
Where is it being applied?
While Kenya is considering adopting this technology, other countries are already doing so. The first African country to implement it was. In Bana City, 6,400 sterile mosquitoes without gene drive and 8,500 unmodified mosquitoes were used for research. One of the highlights of this study was that the sterile male mosquitoes did not survive as long as the unmodified mosquitoes.
is another country that has adopted this technology. The history of malaria in this East African country is very interesting. In 2012, malaria was practically completely eradicated, until the , An invasive mosquito native to the Arabian Peninsula and South Asia, thrived in urban areas, causing malaria cases to once again reach peak levels. With the approval of the Djibouti authorities, Oxitec and the Gates Foundation developed a Anopheles Stephensi friendly.
Oxitec
“In May we started releasing our friendly male mosquitoes in Djibouti. We are right at the beginning of the tour. With these first releases, what we are trying to do is understand the behavior of our male mosquitoes, know where they go and how long they live in the environment. And then the next step will be to start releasing them throughout the community,” explains Morrison.
According to Morrison, Oxitec has released more than 1 billion transgenic mosquitoes in various parts of the world, but their main achievement where, using the technology, they have supposedly contained 95% of the mosquito Aedes aegypti causing dengue in urban communities.
Why is this technology so criticized?
As Kenya prepares to adopt this bold technology, which resembles the idea of setting a thief to catch another thief, the voices of advocates are as loud as those of advocates.
Organizations, groups and individuals have begun to question this technology, expressing concern about the possible negative ecological effects, the lack of adequate laws and the few studies that have been carried out.
In relation to the experiment carried out in Bana, for example, the French organization Inf’OGM has stated that no independent risk assessment was carried out, especially regarding biosafety. Furthermore, the organization denounced that the project lacked public participation and the approval of the local community.
Another concern is the development of unknown pathogens that could end up harming humans, the ecological impact on the food chain and the transformation of genetically modified mosquitoes into more potent disease-spreading organisms. Also from an ethical point of view, since the technology is rather in its initial stages, some communities may feel that they are being used as guinea pigs.
However, Helen Jamet defends that everything is under control. “These concerns are important and reflect the need for a prudent, science-based approach. In the case of traditional modified mosquitoes, such as those developed by Oxitec, safety mechanisms are created to limit their persistence in the environment, such as designing mosquitoes that cannot survive beyond a few generations. This is very appropriate for focal or urban malaria control, since it provides localized, temporary and reversible protection,” he emphasizes.
