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Malaria

Mosquitoes bamboozled

Nature volume 474, pages 40–41 (2011)Cite this article

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Mosquitoes harbouring the malaria parasite follow pulses of carbon dioxide exhaled by their human prey to track them down. A novel set of chemicals can distract these insects by disrupting their sense of smell. See Letter p.87

The mosquito could be the world's most dangerous creature. It is a vampire vector for the malaria parasite and other pathogens that kill about a million humans, mostly children, each year. People protect themselves against mosquitoes by sleeping under fine netting and by slathering themselves with high concentrations of DEET — an effective, if expensive, repellent. But on page 87 of this issue, Turner et al.1 report a promising new line of defence.

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Figure 1: Newly identified odorants can fool mosquitoes.

References

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  1. Mark Stopfer is at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.,

    Mark Stopfer

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  1. Mark Stopfer
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Correspondence to Mark Stopfer.

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Stopfer, M. Mosquitoes bamboozled. Nature 474, 40–41 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/474040a

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