Is the end of malaria here? A team of British scientists said they have discovered an ‘elixir’ pill poisonous to malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Scientists discovered the disease-carrying flies died after feeding on the blood of humans given super-strength doses of ivermectin.
The mosquito-killing effects lasted up to a month after patients were given the drug, which is already used to treat scabies. Researchers now hope the drug could be used to stem the control of malaria, and potentially other mosquito-borne diseases.
According to the research study published this week in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases. The new study, conducted in Kenya by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, revealed that the blood of patients who took three high doses of ivermectin in pill form over three days remained poisonous to mosquitoes for up to 28 days.
The study found that patients suffered few side effects from the medication, though all were already suffering from malaria.
“The most exciting result was the fact that even one month after (the subjects took) Ivermectin, their blood was still killing mosquitoes,” said Dr. Menno Smit of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. “That’s much longer than we thought.”
“We put the blood in an artificial membrane that mosquitoes could bite on and then watched,” Smit said. Most died within a week, and within two weeks 97 percent were dead, the study found.
If larger studies and further tests on children are successful, the researchers may certify Ivermectin, okay to combat the spread of malaria by reducing the mosquito population.
