Djibouti has broken new ground in the fight against malaria by using mosquitoes to fight mosquitoes.

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Neil Morrison, Oxitec’s malaria programme lead, said that the country took the lead in advancing a new solution for the fight against malaria.

He said the country undertook Africa’s first-ever pilot release of Friendly™ Mosquitoes on African soil with a genetically engineered mosquito released in East Africa, and the second time on the African continent.

He said the Djibouti Friendly™ Mosquito Programme’ was in partnership with Oxitec, a global biotechnology company and developer of biological solutions to control pests, Djibouti’s National Malaria Control Programme, and a local public health not-for-profit Association Mutualis.

Mr Morrison explained that in 2012, Djibouti was on the verge of eradicating malaria when the country witnessed an upsurge. He said the Oxitec’s Friendly™ mosquitoes had been designed to fight the invasive new malaria vector in East Africa, Anopheles Stephensi.

He explained that the new malaria vector was posing a major public health threat due to its adaptation to urban environments and evasion of existing malaria treatments and tools.

He said it was observed that a new mosquito called Anopheles Stephensi had arrived in Africa, causing malaria cases to rise from 27,000 in 2012 to 73,000 in 2020, all because of this mosquito.

“It was quite a lot of cases for a country of only one million people,” he said, adding that the highly invasive mosquito species was from South Asia. 

According to him, Anopheles Stephensi is one of the biggest threats to efforts to eliminate malaria because it is resistant to most insecticides and thrives in urban areas.

Consequently, in 2018, Djibouti contacted Oxitec to help find innovative solutions to mosquitoes and a way to control malaria, making the company a pioneer in using mosquitoes to fight mosquitoes.

He explained that the Bill Gates Foundation was also approached as a partner. 

“Today, we are releasing the first set of our friendly mosquitoes, demonstrating that the solution can have a meaningful impact and be effective, too,” Mr Morrison stated.

He said two small genes were inserted into the mosquito genome, which allowed them to release friendly male mosquitoes that would seek out and mate with wild-type females.

“Only female mosquitoes bite. So,  all of the female offspring from that mating will die, thereby reducing the number of malaria-transmitting female mosquitoes in the environment,” Mr Morrison said.

However, the self-limiting gene will be passed down a few more generations to subsequent male mosquitoes, allowing them to continue the fight for a limited time before they “disappear” from the environment.

The technology gives more opportunities to eliminate malaria and other vector diseases.

The first release of non-biting Friendly™ Anopheles Stephensi male mosquitoes was conducted in Ambouli, a community in Djibouti City – in the Horn of Africa.

This followed a review and approvals from the Government of Djibouti’s regulatory authorities and the importation of the Friendly™ mosquitoes into Djibouti in December 2023.

Releases of Friendly™ male mosquitoes will continue over the coming weeks, alongside mosquito monitoring, to study how these released Friendly™ males behave in the Djiboutian communities.

(NAN)