UN Uses Atomic Technology to Fight Malaria Mosquito

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Subject:  UN Uses Atomic Technology to Fight Malaria Mosquito
     Date:  4/26/2004
    From:     Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com) (www.thebestcontrol.com)

To:     Paul Helliker <phelliker@cdpr.ca.gov>
          Director, State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation 

  http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=BP5D0UJPOD1OQCRBAEKSFEY?type=scienceNews&storyID=4931583  

  UN Uses Atomic Technology to Fight Malaria Mosquito   Sun Apr 25, 2004 02:49 PM ET - By Louis Charbonneau

   SEIBERSDORF, Austria (Reuters) - The United Nations is harnessing nuclear technology to try to eradicate the mosquitoes whose bite transmits malaria, a deadly   disease devastating the African continent.

   Sunday is Africa Malaria Day, when governments will focus attention on a disease which kills millions of Africans a year, most of them children, and costs the continent   at least $12 billion in lost gross domestic product.

   Bart Knols, a Dutch entomologist at the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), estimates there are "three to five hundred million cases of malaria every year   on a world-wide scale, 90 percent of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa."

   "Sub-Saharan Africa also suffers the major burden... of mortality," he told Reuters during a tour of the IAEA's entomology laboratories.

   One African child dies of malaria every 20 seconds. People in poor, remote villages are usually unable to get treatment and so Knols's research aims to nip the problem   in the bud by destroying the mosquito that transmits the malaria parasite.

   The IAEA is best known for its inspections of countries like Iran and Iraq who are suspected of building atomic weapons. But the agency has already used its expertise   to wipe out the dreaded tsetse fly, which can transmit fatal sleeping sickness, from the island of Zanzibar.

   NUKING MOSQUITOES

   The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is a simple idea. Scientists breed insects and expose the males to enough radiation to render them sterile. The males are then   released into the environment to breed with the females, whose eggs are unfertilized and never hatch.

   "The whole idea or concept is that the population would actually start to crash and eventually may actually lead to eradication of the insect, and therefore eradication of   the disease and less malaria," said Knols, who has personally suffered nine bouts of malaria through working with mosquitoes.

   Alan Robinson, the entomologist in charge of the IAEA's entomology unit, said the $4 million project was still in its infancy. He described it as a "high-risk project" with   many hurdles to overcome before it is ready for field trials.

   Over the next five years, they need to reach a point where they can produce a million sterile male insects a day

    The males they breed must be robust enough to survive when released from planes into the environment and tough enough to compete with fertile males during mating.   The females, the ones which bite humans, only mate once in their two-week lives.

   Knols and Robinson point out that in the 1970s, El Salvador successfully used the SIT to eradicate the malaria mosquito from part of the country.

   "They brought that insect into the lab, started producing it in large numbers, sterilized it and then released it in a small area... about 15 square kilometers, and   successfully induced 100 percent sterility in the population," Knols said.

   Afterwards, they started a much larger project in which they were producing a million male insects a day. But when civil war broke out the project ended.

   "We think we can do a better job than they did in El Salvador," said Robinson.

   He said the technique of sterilization could not be used all over Africa and would have to be combined with other population control techniques to eradicate the malaria   pest.

   "But there's no alternative to irradiation for the sterile insect technique. It's a very clean technique," he said, adding that there was no risk of contamination. "The insects   are not radioactive when they're released."

 

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