By Linda Naa Deide Aryeetey
Accra, March 4, GNA- The Mosquito Ecology Research Facility at the University of Ghana (UG) Tuesday hosted a group of community elders from Abutia Amegame and Mafia Agorve in the Volta Region to familiarise themselves with the study of mosquitoes at the insectary.
The familiarisation visit was to help them understand how the mosquitoes, harvested from their communities, are studied in the lab in efforts to develop innovative ways to control their breeding and reduce malaria.
At the lab, the group were schooled on how mosquitoes are transported from the community to the lab, cared for, reared and how they will later be released into the community to suppress the mosquito population.
Dr Fred Aboagye-Antwi, a Senior Lecturer in Medical Entomology and Parasitology, UG, Legon, said the lab was studying mosquitoes to uncover novel control measures to reduce malaria infections drastically.
The aim, after the study, is to release male mosquitoes that are genetically modified or sterile to mate with female mosquitoes to reduce their population.
“Here we investigate the larvae growth conditions with larvae diet as a critical part to producing male mosquitoes that are fit to compete with wild male mosquitoes and mate with wild female mosquitoes,” he said.
Dr Aboagye-Antwi, also the Principal Investigator for target Malaria, said the Malaria Insectary, was exploring a gene drive technology that would either suppress or replace the Anopheles gambiae population.
The goal of the gene drive approaches under investigation was to produce genetically modified Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes that could pass a genetic modification onto a high percentage of their offspring, he said.
“The objective of the genetic modifications we are making is to reduce the number of female Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes because they are the ones who transmit malaria when they bite humans,” Dr Aboagye-Antwi said.
Target Malaria is an innovative project aiming to reduce the population of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes in sub-Saharan Africa to reduce disease transmission.
GNA