Scientists develop 'holy grail' method to identify the ageing mosquitos which cause malaria - Scientists at the University of Glasgow and partner institutes have developed an inexpensive, fast and simple way to identify the ageing mosquitos which transmit the deadly malaria parasite. The study - published today and led by the University of Glasgow-Institute of Biodiversity Animal Health and Comparative Medicine (IBAHCM) and School of Chemistry, and the Ifakara Health Instititute (IHI) in Tanzania and the Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Santé (IRSS) in Burkina Faso- presents a step change in our ability to accurately identify the age and species of malaria mosquitoes in wild populations, where it is critically important to be able to monitor their age, as only old mosquitoes can transmit the disease. In 2020, there were an estimated 241 million cases of malaria worldwide, according to the WHO, killing around 627,000 people; and while there are vector controls in place to reduce the numbers of mosquitos that transmit the disease in certain parts of the world -such as insecticides or bed nets - the effectiveness of these interventions can be hard to measure. In this study, scientists demonstrate a method of identifying the age and species of malaria mosquitos in wild populations by using infrared spectroscopy and artificial intelligence (AI). By shining infrared light on individual mosquitos - which provides information on the chemical composition of the insect's cuticle- scientists were able to quickly identify the chemical changes of ageing mosquitos using an AI algorithm and validate their age predictions on wild mosquitoes with current methods, achieving similar results.
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