Rechtfertigen 670.000 Tote/Jahr das ausrotten einer Tierart?
Should we use a genetic weapon against mosquitoes carrying malaria?
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Researchers are eyeing Africa for the first test release. There, malaria takes a huge toll. In 2020, it sickened close to 241 million people on the continent. And most of the globe’s 670,000 malaria deaths that year were in Africa. About eight in every 10 were children, the World Health Organization says.
Female offspring that inherit two bad copies of doublesex end up malformed. They are sterile, so they can’t reproduce. And they cannot bite people. That means they can’t spread malaria.
The gene drive worked well in the cages in Terni. When males carrying the gene drive were added, the populations died out in 245 to 311 days. In two other cages, no gene-drive mosquitoes were added. There, the mosquitoes lived normally to the end of the experiment.
