Spermless mosquitoes could reduce malaria outbreaks

According to scientists at Imperial College London, releasing spermless male mosquitoes into the wild could reduce outbreaks of malaria, Reuters reports. These scientists managed to sterilize male mosquitoes by genetically modifying them to knock out a gene that’s required for sperm production. They found that females couldn’t tell the difference if the males they mated with were fertile or spermless. In the future, they suggest, it could be possible to control the size of the moquito population by introducing this genetic change. According to the World Health Organization, a child dies of malaria in Africa every 45 seconds.

Reuters