Mosquito Gut Bacterium May Curb Malaria

infectious disease Mosquito Gut Bacterium May curb MalariaBefore Plasmodium falciparum, the most important human malaria parasite, can infect people, it must first infect its mosquito host.But that's not always so easy to do, according to a team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Malaria Institute at Macha in Zambia.The team reports that a bacterium naturally found in mosquitoes produces a short-lived molecule that can kill the P. falciparum parasite in its early stages of life. 1 "These bacteria could be used for the development of a biocontrol strategy [to combat malaria]," says senior author