"Climate change and the rapid evolution of the insect have helped drive up malaria deaths and brought dengue and other mosquito-borne viruses to places that never had to worry about them."
"Along hundreds of miles of Lake Victoria’s shoreline in Kenya, a squadron of young scientists and an army of volunteers are waging an all-out war on a creature that threatens the health of more people than any other on earth: the mosquito.
They are testing new insecticides and ingenious new ways to deliver them. They are peering in windows at night, watching for the mosquitoes that home in on sleeping people. They are collecting blood — from babies, from moto-taxi drivers, from goat herders and from their goats — to track the parasites the mosquitoes carry.
But Eric Ochomo, the entomologist leading this effort on the front lines of global public health, stood recently in the swampy grass, laptop in hand, and acknowledged a grim reality: “It seems as though the mosquitoes are winning.”
Less than a decade ago, it was the humans who appeared to have gained the clear edge in the fight — more than a century old — against the mosquito. But over the past few years, that progress has not only stalled, it has reversed."
Stephanie Nolen reports for the New York Times with photographs by Malin Fezehai September 29, 2023.
SEE ALSO:
"One Village, Two Houses — and a New Tactic to Win the War on Mosquitoes" (New York Times)
"Unleashing a New Weapon on the Mosquito: A Mosquito" (New York Times)
"The Gamble: Can Genetically Modified Mosquitoes End Disease?" (New York Times)
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