Malaria Vaccine Delivered Via Mosquito Bite

“THE MOSQUITO IS one of the deadliest animals on the planet,” declared two South African researchers in a recent Nature article.

- Ronald Bailey

This tiny insect is responsible for spreading malaria, a disease that infected nearly 250 million people in 2022 and killed more than 600,000 of them. Most of the victims live in sub-Saharan Africa, with children under 5 years of age accounting for nearly 80 percent of all malaria deaths.

But what if mosquitoes could deliver not just the disease but the protection? In a groundbreaking proof-of-concept clinical trial, researchers in the Netherlands recruited mosquitoes to deliver an anti- malaria vaccine with each bite. As