This is how gardening may help tackle malaria
A new study has found that gardening
may act as a strong tool to tackle malaria.
Scientists say that getting rid of
certain flowers can help curb mosquito population by cutting off their food
supply. Researchers, including those from Hebrew University in Israel, tested
nine villages in the arid Bandiagara district of Mali in West Africa.
They removed the flowers of a shrub
- Prosopis juliflora - from three villages where it had been common. These were
compared with three others where the P juliflora was allowed to remain, and
three more where it had never appeared at all.
They set light traps around all the
villages to catch mosquitoes so they could see if the "gardening" had
helped cull the insects.
Researchers found that villages
where they removed the flowers saw mosquito numbers collected in the traps fall
- the total number of mosquitoes across these villages decreased by nearly 60
per cent after removal of the flowers, 'BBC News' reported.
The number of old female mosquitoes
dropped to similar levels recorded in the three villages without any of the
shrubs. Researchers believe the mosquitoes died of starvation. The female
Anopheles mosquitoes carry the malaria parasite in their salivary glands and pass
it on to people when they bite and draw blood.
The infected person can then infect
other younger, biting, female mosquitoes - which are looking for a rich blood
meal as they become fertile and make eggs - because their blood now contains
the parasite.
07.07.2017
Never leave that till tomorrow
which you can do today
Benjamin Franklin
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