The red liquid attracts them like flies.

With fake blood harmless to humans and other insects, scientists based in Sweden hope to deal a death blow to mosquitoes and malaria.

The product developed with beet juice by a team from Stockholm University is intended as an alternative to the use of pesticides harmful to the environment and human health, in addition to the progress made to develop a vaccine against malaria and its approximately 630,000 deaths in 2020.

A specific molecule combined with toxins

Malaria has the vicious peculiarity of not only making people very sick, but also making mosquitoes more attracted to infected people, facilitating contagion by spreading the parasite causing the disease. In 2017, Noushin Emami and other researchers found that this phenomenon was linked to a specific molecule - HMBPP - produced when the parasite in question attacks the victim's red blood cells. "If we add this molecule to any liquid, we make it very attractive to mosquitoes," explains the scientist.

“By combining the molecule with a tiny amount of toxins, mosquitoes swallow it and die” within hours, without even needing to use real blood to attract them.

The goal is also to use “deadly harmless, environmentally friendly and easily obtainable compounds,” she says.

Alternative to pesticides

For Lech Ignatowicz, who co-founded the company "Molecular Attraction" which develops the product, the method is considerably more effective and less harmful than the immense quantities of pesticides applied to neutralize mosquitoes, often dangerous for the environment or health. “Pesticides kill all types of insects they come in contact with. Here, even in very dense environments such as the jungle or tropical areas filled with insects, we choose the ones we want to get rid of, ”he explains. "Instead of a carpet of bombs", summarizes the expert, it is rather a bomb "directed at a particular target".

Pesticides are also increasingly less effective against mosquitoes, according to the WHO, with 78 countries reporting mosquito resistance to at least one of the four most common insecticides, and 29 nations for all four.

A method applicable for other diseases?

While the Swedish team focused on malaria, their method also has the potential to be applied to other insect-borne diseases, such as that spread by the Zika virus.

The big challenge will now be to transpose the technique on a large scale, outside the laboratory.

Anders Lindström, a mosquito researcher at the Swedish Veterinary Institute who is independent from the project, says he is "cautiously optimistic".

"The problem is always to scale up, the territories which must be covered by this type of trap for them to be effective are immense," he told AFP.

It is also necessary to be able to ensure the continuity of the operation, which can prove difficult in remote areas or in war.

The researcher nevertheless believes that the method can be very effective, especially in conjunction with other techniques.

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