Malarial mozzies become resistant to insecticides

Overborder travelers beware.

Just as previously-effective antimalarial medications have become ineffective, so mosquito-killing insecticides are losing their sting, as it were.

For example, a combination of chloroquine and proguanil is rarely recommended nowadays because it is largely ineffective against Anopheles funestus mozzies, the most common malaria-carrying mozzies in Africa.

And now, reports The Mozambique Investor, Mozambique’s malaria mosquitoes are acquiring resistance to insecticides, according to the Malaria Journal.

Scientists in the study said that the insect’s resistance “could seriously undermine control vectors if appropriate countermeasures are not taken”.

The study, coordinated by the Global Health Institute of Barcelona in partnership with the Centre for Health Research in Manhiça, Mozambique, showed that only 5%-20% of the Anopheles funestus mosquitoes responsible for the spread of the disease die after exposure to insecticides.