Burkina Faso says no to Bill Gates’ plan of creating modified species of mosquitoes

[u/lurker_bee]

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/burkina-faso-says-no-to-bill-gates-plan-of-creating-modified-species-of-mosquitoes/xyk7xm8

[u/Gastronomicus]

but it is certainly not the only way of eliminating malaria in a country

There is literally no other way to do it other than massive pesticide applications and draining wetlands, two very problematic western approaches that effectively destroy natural ecosystems and many beneficial organisms as collateral damage.

[u/Harvestman-man → u/Gastronomicus]

Massive pesticide applications won’t do it. That worked in the US since there wasn’t all that much malaria in the US to begin with, but Burkina Faso has been using DDT to control mosquitos for decades, and now there are DDT-resistant mosquito populations and malaria is still around.

Mosquitos evolve, they’re animals with fast reproductive cycles.

[u/Gastronomicus → u/Harvestman-man]

I agree, I'm mostly pointing to the methods that they do already use. Large-scale applications work better when the breeding habitats are also eliminated, which is what happened across the USA, though it was never nearly as entrenched there as it is elsewhere which made things easier.