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Malaria patients’ smell attracts mosquitoes —study

Wednesday April 25 2018
moskwito

Macro of mosquito sucking blood close up on the human skin. FOTOSEARCH

By KENNEDY SENELWA

The International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (Icipe) has found that people suffering from malaria produce a specific smell that attracts mosquitoes.

Researchers from ICIPE, Cardiff University, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Rothamsted Research, and Wageningen University & Research did a study among schoolgoing children in western Kenya and found that heptanal, octanal and nonanal, which are known as aldehydes, are emitted at higher levels by those suffering from malaria.

“Our study advances earlier research that showed that children carrying the malaria plasmodium are more attractive to mosquitoes than their healthy counterparts,” said Icipe’s principal scientist Dr Dan Masiga.

Annette Busula, a scholar who was involved in study, said “We concluded that plasmodium parasites manipulate odours of malaria-infected humans, increasing attractiveness to vectors.”

The findings were published by Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (PANAS) journal.

Wageningen University Researcher Jetske de Boer said that the proportion of aldehydes appears to increase from about 15 per cent of total odour bouquet to almost 23 per cent among infected people.

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“The higher density the of parasites in the blood, the more of three aldehydes are emitted,” she said.

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