Destructive mosquito embryo scientists find new ways to control mosquito breeding

American scientists say they have taken an important step toward developing a "mosquito birth control" drug. The drug will curb the spread of malaria and other deadly diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of people each year. According to a report on the British Thomson Reuters Foundation website on January 8, researchers at the University of Arizona said they found a protein unique to female mosquitoes, which is important for the hatching of mosquitoes.

When scientists remove this protein, female mosquitoes produce eggs with imperfect outer shells, causing internal embryos to die. The team said that developing drugs for this protein can reduce the number of mosquitoes without harming beneficial insects such as bees.

Roger Misfeld, head of the university's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, told this website on the phone: "This is an important discovery."

He said: "Of course we are excited about this... This avoids the mosquito resistance problem and is more biosafer than other methods."

The World Health Organization says mosquitoes are among the deadliest animals in the world. It warned that the global fight against malaria is stagnation. In 2016, the disease infected approximately 216 million people and caused 445,000 deaths – mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.

The World Health Organization says mosquito-borne diseases and viruses include Zika virus, Chikungunya fever, yellow fever, West Nile virus and dengue fever.

Misfeld said that the current method of controlling mosquitoes has been used for many years and mosquitoes have developed resistance.

Misfeld said that the scientists unexpectedly found that the females tested were no longer fertile in their remaining 2 to 3 weeks of life.

He said: "Once we remove this protein, female mosquitoes can no longer produce hatchable eggs, even if they are fed a lot of blood. So... birth control is an excellent way to describe this method."

He said he hopes the discovery will develop a new generation of pesticides in five years.

Misfeld said the discovery, published in the journal Science Public Library and Biology, makes it easier to reduce the number of mosquitoes during disease outbreaks. But he added that scientists don't want mosquitoes to become extinct because it is a pollinating insect.

He said: "Mosquitoes are part of the ecosystem. I will not eliminate mosquitoes."