Word: mosquito
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Malaria experts are buzzing with the news that scientists have cracked the genetic codes of both the malaria parasite and the principal mosquito that carries it to humans. Malaria is one of the world's deadliest diseases--striking some 500 million people a year and killing as many as 3 million of them. So the genetic secrets hidden in those codes could help drug companies design more effective treatments, better repellents and maybe even a vaccine. The information could also be used, some scientists suggest, to breed genetically modified mosquitoes that are resistant to the malaria parasite. Release these mutant...
...Millions of others are being taken on the same ride. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), dengue infects more than 100 million people a year?and the mosquito-borne sickness is on the rise. Once confined to tropical regions like Southeast Asia, 100 countries are now classified as dengue risk areas, up from nine prior to 1970. "Dengue is being seen in places it hasn't been seen before," says Dr. John Simon, a tropical disease specialist in Hong Kong, where a furor over the fever has been roiling local newspapers since the first locally contracted case was reported...
...trouble in a tiny package?specifically, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, whose bite is the main way the virus can spread. Aedes aegypti are right at home in tropical cities rife with stagnant water and human targets. "Once a dengue epidemic is under way, it's very difficult to stop it," says Dr. Ray Arthur, a virologist for the who. No vaccine exists...
Another goal of the research is to use population biology to compare the parasite genome with the genome of the mosquito, which has already been published, and the genome of the human, a draft of which has been completed. This will allow scientists to better understand the interaction between the parasite and its two hosts, according to Wirth...
...parasite lives off mosquito hosts that spread the disease to humans...