This new drug could make your blood kill mosquito

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New Delhi: A team of researchers have discovered a new drug that could make our blood kill the mosquito. Sounds bizzare, right? The drug named Ivermectic is widely used in the treatment of other tropical diseases, reportedly.

Research team from the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted a study where people were dosed with Ivermectin to make them deadly targets for the mosquitoes that transmit Malaria.

The study showed that adding high doses of ivermectin to the antimalarial dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine (DP) had a major and prolonged effect on mosquito mortality, reportedly.

According to a report in Science Daily, the research team evaluated doses that were predicted to give drug levels that were 2 times and 4 times higher than the standard dose. They combined it with the Malaria drug DP which is routinely used in mass drug administration in many Malaria endemic countries. They found that three-day courses of Ivermectin 300 and 600 mcg/kg/day were safe and routinely killed mosquitoes feeding on the blood of the treated individuals for at least 28 days post-treatment.

The findings, funded by Malaria Eradication Scientific Alliance (MESA) and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), found that Ivermectin at both doses assessed was well tolerated and reduced mosquito survival for at least 28 days after treatment. Ivermectin could be the potential new tool for elimination of Malaria.

The study was originally published in the journals of The Lancet Infectious Diseases.