Discovery: Naturally Occurring Bacteria Can Prevent Malaria

News Desk

Islamabad: Scientists claim to have discovered a bacterium that will kill the malaria parasite at its root in an experiment to develop a powerful and effective malaria drug.

The British multinational pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the American University of John Hopkins experts discovered the bacteria ‘Delftia tsuruhatensis Tres Cantos 1’ (TC1) during research which prevents mosquitoes from spreading malaria.

The GSK report stated that mosquitoes were being bred in Spain as an experiment on a powerful anti-malarial drug, where they were given very low doses of the naturally occurring bacteria TC1.

GSK Chief Global Health Officer Thomas Breuer said, “TC1 has potential to further reduce the huge burden of malaria in endemic countries and is more evidence that through deploying a range of prevention approaches, we may be able to finally eradicate this terrible disease.”

According to the experts, the said case was also monitored for several years and they were surprised to know that the virus that causes malaria is not growing in mosquitoes after being fed with special bacteria.

Experts further said that if the bacteria are mixed with various substances and released where mosquitoes are present, the mosquitoes that eat the bacterial components will be free of the malaria parasite and they will stop spreading the disease.

Malaria is one of the oldest diseases in the world, killing millions of people every year, especially young people. Now, even though malaria treatment drugs and vaccines are also available all over the world, the disease is not decreasing.

The continents of Asia and Africa are among the regions most affected by malaria, where mosquitoes are the most important and fastest means of spreading the disease due to other reasons, including environmental pollution.

Although some types of malaria are present in the environment, most of the world’s malaria is spread by mosquito bites and the virus ‘malaria parasite’ transmitted by mosquito bites is called malaria.

There are five different types of malaria parasites, some of which can be life-threatening if not diagnosed and treated in time.

Research Institute in Health Sciences Medical Entomology and Parasitology Director Dr Abdoulaye Diabaté stated, “We hope to provide a viable solution that can be readily adopted in field settings to control and prevent malaria transmission which could have a profound impact on public health.”

This could ultimately help save the lives of millions of children and foster sustainable development in malaria-endemic regions, he added.

Experts emphasized the need for further research on the issue and termed the discovery the most important achievement in malaria prevention so far.