Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.
The discovery of ‘knockdown resistance’ (kdr) – a major insecticide resistance mechanism in insect pests – may be linked to widespread contamination and historical stockpiles of DDT.
Once widely used in agriculture, DDT has now been banned, but it continues to affect the environment.
The kdr mutation was discovered while the researchers were conducting whole genome sequencing across multiple mosquito populations in Tanzania to better understand genetic variation in their populations.
When the researchers saw the unexpected resistance to DDT within one group, further analysis revealed the resistance to be linked to new kdr mutations.
This finding suggests that prolonged environmental contamination may have exerted selective pressure on the mosquitoes, prompting the emergence of this resistance.
Currently, chemical insecticides are central to the control of agricultural pests and disease vectors, such as mosquitoes.
Control of Anopheles mosquitoes through the distribution of over 2.9 billion insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) has helped avert an estimated 633 million cases of malaria, a disease that still kills 600,000 a year.
However, the widespread use of insecticides for the control of agricultural pest and disease vectors also has adverse consequences, including direct lethal and sub-lethal effects on human and animal health.
A key obstacle to sustainable malaria control is the evolutionary arms race between mosquitoes and insecticide-based mosquito control.
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Joel Odero, lead author and PhD student at the University of Glasgow’s School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, and a research scientist at the Ifakara Institute of Health, said: “Our finding raises concerns about the effectiveness of current malaria control methods, which rely on n big on insecticides.
“Understanding the development of insecticide resistance is key to fighting malaria, a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people annually, mainly in Africa.
“The research highlights how environmental legacies such as DDT pollution can shape modern public health challenges. The emergence of new resistance mechanisms could threaten decades of progress made in reducing malaria transmission and mortality.”
Francesco Baldini, University of Glasgow’s School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, added: “Our discovery sheds light on the far-reaching and unintended consequences of historical insecticide use, highlighting how past environmental contamination can shape the evolution of vector populations and impact. current public health interventions.”
Fredros Okumu, University of Glasgow and the Ifakara Institute of Health, said: “There is an urgent need for a follow-up study to monitor the evolution of vector DDT resistance and determine whether this type of resistance could occur in other insecticide families that are currently being introduced into production across the African continent.”
The paper, ‘Discovery of downstream resistance in the main African malaria vector, Anopheles funestus,’ is published in Molecular Ecology.
(Except translation, this story has not been edited by achinews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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