You would trust the animal that has killed humans the most.
Did you know that mosquitoes responsible for spreading deadly diseases such as malaria could become allies in the fight against these diseases, researchers have taken a bold step by using these small insects as organic distributors of vaccines, in tests carried out on humans the effectiveness of this approach achieved an impressive 90%.
For centuries mosquitoes have been feared as transmitters of devastating diseases, but scientists at the London School decided to look at these insects from a completely different perspective. Instead of seeing them as blood-sucking parasites, they considered them a natural distribution system capable of delivering vaccines. directly in the human organism.
Under normal conditions, protozoa travel hidden in the salivary glands of female Anopheles mosquitoes. When the mosquito bites a person, the parasites enter the bloodstream and migrate to the liver cells where they multiply rapidly, releasing thousands of new parasites into the bloodstream. , this explosion triggers the dreaded symptoms of malaria, fever, chills, extreme fatigue and other serious complications.
Exchange parasites for vaccines that no one has asked for.
But what if these parasites could be transformed from disease agents into “protection tools”, that is exactly what the team did, the scientists genetically modified the malaria-causing protozoan to create a version called GA2, this altered parasite acts as a vaccine, behaves normally until it reaches the liver cells. After 6 days it simply stops developing, without releasing the secondary parasites responsible for the infection.
Instead, GA2 releases antigens that train the human immune system, preparing it to fight real infections in the future. When a normal mosquito transmits the wild parasite, the body is already ready to neutralize the threat before it develops, to demonstrate effectiveness. Based on this idea, the team recruited 43 volunteers. In the first test, 20 people were exposed to 15 or 50 bites from mosquitoes carrying the G2 parasite.
None of the participants presented signs of infection in the blood confirming the safety of the approach, in a second stage 23 volunteers were bitten three times along 28 knees, they received 50 bites from normal mosquitoes with different versions of the modified parasite then they all faced the final challenge five bites from mosquitoes carrying unmodified parasites.
As a result, 89% of the participants exposed to GA2 avoided infection completely and the question that remains is that organic “vaccines” are the future of immunization. Although there are limitations, this research opens the doors to new ways to combat malaria. a disease that still causes about 608,000 deaths a year, according to the CDC.
Although the idea of using genetically modified mosquitoes as flying vaccines has not yet been accepted in society, the advances obtained show the constant search for solutions to global health problems.
