FRANCE 24 speaks to Delphine Thizy, from the research consortium Target Malaria, currently in the process of releasing 10,000 genetically modified mosquitoes in three villages in Burkina Faso in a bid to lower the number of insects which can transmit the disease. Malaria is still responsible for 450,000 deaths worldwide each year and kills a child every two minutes in Africa. Thizy joins us on Perspective to tell us more about the ambitious project.
Thizy explains that the long-term aims are to make all mosquito births male, or to affect the fertility of female mosquitoes in order to bring the numbers down.
Only female mosquitoes bite.
