Sucker punch: the European research project dealing a blow to mosquitoes

  • 9 years ago
Mankind has been at war with mosquitoes down through the ages because of the threat they pose through malaria.

“I’ve been in the business of mosquitoes for the last 22 years, studying these insects not only because they are fascinating, but also because they cause a lot of trouble in the world through diseases like malaria, which still every year cause the death of more than 700,000 people worldwide,” says Bart Knols, a medical entomologist

He is one of the lead researchers on a European project
that is taking the battle to the mosquito with a new simple and inexpensive device.

Knols is the coordinator of the In2Care/MCD project: “These insects – they have been with us for millions of years, they are an evolutionary Rolls Royce if you wish – I mean they are very good in finding people, very good in transmitting the diseases that they carry, and controlling them for us as mankind has been very complicated – because if we spray insecticide on them they become resistant. So we h