[afro-nets] IAEA To Use Nuclear Technology To Eradicate Malaria

[Dr Rana Jawad Asghar <jawad@alumni.washington.edu>]

IAEA To Use Nuclear Technology To Eradicate Malaria
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Tuesday, April 27, 2004
http://www.unwire.org/UNWire/20040427/449_23192.asp

The International Atomic Energy Agency is using nuclear technol-
ogy in an effort to eradicate the mosquito responsible for
transmitting malaria, which is said to kill one African child
every 20 seconds, Reuters reports.

According to Bart Knols, an entomologist at the IAEA, the agency
will use the so-called Sterile Insect Technique to breed the
mosquitoes and expose the males to enough radiation to make them
sterile. They will then be released into the environment to
breed with the females, whose unfertilized eggs will never
hatch.

"The whole idea or concept is that the population would actually
start to crash and eventually may actually lead to eradication
of the insect, and therefore eradication of the disease and less
malaria," Knols said.

Alan Robinson, another entomologist at the IAEA working on the
technique, said the project will cost $4 million and that over
the next five years scientists will need to produce a million
sterile male insects a day for the work to be effective. He also
said the project is safe, since "the insects are not radioactive
when they're released."

According to both scientists, El Salvador used the technique
successfully to fight malaria in the 1970s, but the project
ended when civil war broke out there. The IAEA has also been in-
volved in projects to eradicate the tsetse fly, which can trans-
mit fatal sleeping sickness (Louis Charbonneau, Reuters/Planet
Ark, April 26).

Africa Malaria Day was commemorated Sunday on the continent,
where the disease kills around 900,000 people per year and costs
more than $12 billion in lost gross domestic product (Roll Back
Malaria Web site

--
Dr Rana Jawad Asghar
Coordinator South Asian Public Health Forum
http://www.saphf.org

Typhoid Information Group
http://www.typhoid.net

My Home on Internet
http://www.DrJawad.com
mailto:jawad@alumni.washington.edu