Malaria Eradication Will Fail Unless Ecology is Better Understood

Efforts to eradicate malaria will fail without a better understanding of the ecology and evolution of the mosquito vectors responsible for transmitting the disease. An article published this month in PLoS Medicine emphasizes the need to better understand the lives of mosquitoes in their broader environment outside of houses if the disease is to be eliminated.

The paper, co-authored by Durland Fish, Ph.D., a professor at the Yale School of Public Health who specializes in the ecology of vector-borne diseases, asserts that the use of existing front-line measures such as insecticide-treated bed nets and indoor residual sprays will not wipe out malaria unless they are combined with new approaches based on a broad understanding of the transmission cycle of the malaria-causing parasite.

Fish and his colleagues further argue that malaria eradication requires urgent strategic investment into understanding the ecology and evolution of the mosquito vectors that transmit infection. “There are huge gaps in our basic knowledge of mosquito ecology,” Fish said. “This is obvious to ecologists, but not widely recognized by medical epidemiologists.”

Though measures such as spraying and the use of bed nets have proven effective in slowing the transmission of malaria, the disease remains a major killer in many areas of the world, particularly in parts of Africa, South American and Asia.

Gerry Killeen, a senior research scientist from Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania and senior author of the paper, said “our understanding of the ecology of mosquitoes that transmit malaria lags decades behind that of agricultural pests, endangered species and model organisms.”

The authors contend that malaria eradication will require improvements in the quantitative understanding of mosquito life history, fitness, genetics, and behavioral processes as determinants of their population stability and malaria transmission intensity.

“Eradication of malaria remains beyond our grasp today,” the authors write. “But is nevertheless firmly back on the global health agenda as a long-term target.”