Oxitec Malaria program
Malaria kills more than half a million people each year across the world and, according to the World Health Organization infects over 240 million people more.
Oxitec’s Friendly™ malaria program targets two malaria-spreading mosquito species that threaten communities and pose major challenges to the international community’s regional malaria eradication goals.
Anopheles stephensi is a malaria-transmitting mosquito native to parts of Asia, but it is now more widely spread across Asia to the Middle East and has now invaded the Horn of Africa and is predicted to spread much further. Unlike most malaria vectors, it readily colonizes urban environments and so presents a major new risk to cities home to tens of millions of people across Africa.
Anopheles albimanus is a mosquito distributed across Meso-America, where it is a dominant vector of malaria. This mosquito presents a significant obstacle to progress in the regional eradication of malaria. It bites people outside, so bed nets offer less protection against malaria infection. New, more effective solutions are needed to combat the mosquito in support of the fight against malaria.
Anopheles stephensi
Anopholes albimanus
Current Programs
Djibouti
In May 2022 Oxitec and the Government of Djibouti announced a new multi-year partnership to fight invasive malaria-transmitting mosquitoes threatening the Horn of Africa.
Recent years have seen unprecedented increases in malaria incidence in Djibouti’s capital city and surrounding communities. Where national annual malaria cases previously numbered in their hundreds, public health authorities are now reporting many tens of thousands of cases each year since the arrival of the invasive Anopheles stephensi mosquito in 2012.
Read more about our Djibouti program in our press release.
