MOSQUITO-slaying fungi could help cut malaria’s toll of misery and death. Two studies have shown that impregnating household surfaces with fungal spores can slash the number of mosquitoes capable of transmitting the parasite.
While simple measures such as using insecticide-impregnated mosquito nets can help prevent malaria, in many areas mosquitoes have developed resistance to the chemicals, so alternatives are urgently needed.
To find out if fungi could be effective, a British team at Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh fed one mosquito species blood infected with a malaria parasite. After two weeks, nearly a third of the insects…
