Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

The renewed effort to eliminate malaria and permanently remove its tremendous burden highlights questions of what combination of tools would be sufficient in various settings and what new tools need to be developed. Gene drive mosquitoes constitute a promising set of tools, with multiple different possible approaches including population replacement with introduced genes limiting malaria transmission, driving-Y chromosomes to collapse a mosquito population, and gene drive disrupting a fertility gene and thereby achieving population suppression or collapse. Each of these approaches has had recent success and advances under laboratory conditions, raising the urgency for understanding how each could be deployed in the real world and the potential impacts of each. New analyses are needed as existing models of gene drive primarily focus on nonseasonal or nonspatial dynamics. We use a mechanistic, spatially explicit, stochastic, individual-based mathematical model to simulate each gene drive approach in a variety of sub-Saharan African settings. Each approach exhibits a broad region of gene construct parameter space with successful elimination of malaria transmission due to the targeted vector species. The introduction of realistic seasonality in vector population dynamics facilitates gene drive success compared with nonseasonal analyses. Spatial simulations illustrate constraints on release timing, frequency, and spatial density in the most challenging settings for construct success. Within its parameter space for success, each gene drive approach provides a tool for malaria elimination unlike anything presently available. Provided potential barriers to success are surmounted, each achieves high efficacy at reducing transmission potential and lower delivery requirements in logistically challenged settings.

Original publication

DOI

10.1073/pnas.1611064114

Type

Journal article

Journal

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

Publication Date

10/01/2017

Volume

114

Pages

E255 - E264

Keywords

Anopheles, elimination, gene drive, malaria, mosquitoes, Animals, Anopheles, Gene Drive Technology, Insect Vectors, Malaria, Models, Theoretical, Mosquito Control, Tanzania