A fungal infection solution could help eliminate up to 86% of malaria-carrying mosquitoes, offering a powerful new tool in the global fight against the disease, according to new research.
Binod Pant, a mathematician and postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute, led the new interdisciplinary and intercollegiate research.
This is the first time that this fungus, called Met-Hybrid, has been mathematically modeled to demonstrate its effectiveness, Pant says.
Pant says that he joined the project almost entirely by accident. While attending a conference, he met an entomologist who proposed using a fungus — toxic only to mosquitoes — that could dramatically reduce the mosquito population in Burkina Faso, where their research was conducted.
“I quickly figured out a mathematical model that we could use to try to explain this to public health people,” Pant says.
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