In his Article “Giving Malaria a Deadline”, Nicholas Wade describes the new ways that scientists plan on reducing the spread of Malaria. This is relevant to health as a global issue because Malaria is a deadly global disease that is affecting millions of people.
In this article, Wade describes how scientists have found a new way to manipulate mosquito genetics that will force the entire population to self destruct.It has proved successful in laboratory tests, and should eliminate the population from large areas of Africa in two decades. A team led by Andrea Crisanti, a biologist at Imperial College, London, altered a gene that disrupts the mosquitos sexual development, ensuring that they will be unable to reproduce. Previous efforts to do this have failed, but this one looks promising.
This article is significant because the Malaria epidemic is a serious one that affects millions of people, mostly in underdeveloped countries. This will hopefully be the cure and end the hundreds of thousands of deaths each year.
Wade, Nicholas. “Giving Malaria a Deadline.” The New York Times, 24 Sep. 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/science/gene-drive-mosquitoes.html?