Gene drives and malaria: how altered mosquitoes could reshape disease control

For decades, malaria control has worked by reducing the number of mosquitoes and treating infected people. As a result bed nets, indoor insecticide spraying, and effective medicines have saved millions of lives. Yet malaria remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, killing more than half a million people each year, most of them children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Anti-malaria efforts have also slowed in many regions as mosquitoes become more resistant to insecticides and the malaria parasite evolves resistance to drugs.