On Tuesday, April 23, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced what could be the world’s first malaria vaccine as part of a large-scale trial project in several countries. The vaccine known as RTS, S will be given to approximately 360,000 children up to two years of age in three African countries: Malawi, Ghana, and […]
Vampire spiders: it sounds like the subject of a bad dream, but in areas where malaria kills hundreds of thousands each year, these arachnids could actually be a dream come true! Two specific species of spiders, Evarcha culicivora (found in East Africa) and Paracyrba wanlessi (found in Malaysia), primarily prey on the female mosquitoes and […]
Malaria kills about 500,000 people a year. Unfortunately, most anti-malarial drugs can cause side effects, and drug resistance can be a problem. However, researchers may have struck gold: they have developed a drug that has cured malaria infection in mice, without detrimental side effects! This new drug, called Ab-1, works by interfering with a protein […]
Everyone knows that mosquitoes bite, but did you know that some species are a bit more selective? The mosquito Wyeomyia smithii can be found in the eastern United States, but only the ones that live south of North Carolina will bite in order to feast on blood. Mosquitoes of the same species that live in […]
Rodent to human zoonotic disease (diseases transmitted from animal to human) have been notable over the years; take the plague for instance. Â Killing between 75 and 200 million people in Europe in the mid 1300’s, it took decades for Europe’s population to recover. So what if the Black Death was somehow predictable? Well, with the […]