Doctors, along with scientists have long been working to find a vaccine for malaria. Although they have yet to find a vaccine, scientists have found a loophole: scientists are genetically targeting the disease carrier rather than the parasite.
Mosquitoes carry malaria and are responsible for spreading it around. Scientists are now modifying a mosquito to make it resistant to the bug. Vice reports:
"Malaria is caused by a single-celled organism that gets passed around by mosquitos, entering the human body when the mosquito bites. But this week, a team of scientists at the University of California reported that they had a modified mosquito gene to make the insect's system turn on the malaria bug - and that the mosquitos will pass that gene on to successive generations."
Even though the process will still need to undergo more testing, many deem that the findings are a "significant first step" against battling the tropical disease responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths per year.
UC Irvine microbiologist and National Academy of Sciences member Anthony James said, upon announcing the results:
"This opens up the real promise that this technique can be adapted for eliminating malaria. [...] This is a significant first step. We know the gene works. The mosquitoes we created are not the final brand, but we know this technology allows us to efficiently create large populations."
According to estimates by the World Health Organization, malaria has affected over 214 million people and even caused the death of 438,000 individuals this year alone.
Looking at the bright side, the amount of cases have decreased by more than one third since the year 2000, while death rates have decreased by 60 percent.
The study findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
