Malaria by itself kills nearly 600,000 people every year in the world. It spreads through mosquitos when they bite and implant parasites in people. Well, imagine if we could just make our blood toxic to them.
That’s exactly what scientists from Royal Liverpool University Hospital are now exploring. They’ve discovered that a medicine called nitisinone can make human blood so harmful to mosquitoes that they die just a few hours after biting someone who took it.
What Is Nitisinone?
Nitisinone is a medicine that has already been used to treat rare diseases in humans. It was originally created as a plant killer, until scientists discovered it could also be used to treat sick children. Fortunately, this drug is already safe in humans (even babies and pregnant women). A low dose of nitisinone, even in single exposure, would be present long term (beyond two weeks) in the blood supply. It kills mosquitoes for several days so it only needs to be taken once.
How Does It Work?
Blood is what mosquitoes love to drink. Once they do, their bodies get filled with some tyrosine (an amino acid). They usually breezed through it. However, nitisinone prevents this. Therefore, the tyrosine accumulates in their body and acts like a poison. That’s what kills them.
Better Than Other Drugs?
Another example of a mosquito-killing drug is ivermectin. But, nitisinone could be even better. It acts quickly, remains in the body for a longer time and does not harm beneficial insects like bees. In addition, it does not act on the nervous system unlike most insecticides so its human and other mammal toxicity is relatively lower compared to neuroactive pesticides.
Still Some Challenges
Nitisinone is quite expensive at present as it has been developed to treat rare diseases. However, if more people were to use this chemical and other similar-looking chemicals for the control of malaria, scientists believe that prices could fall by as much 80%.
What’s Next?
The idea is still experimental, but scientists think it might be a new weapon in the war against malaria. They are also investigating innovative strategies for the drug, such as dosing animals that mosquitoes feed on or blending into distinct nectar traps.
Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adr4827