In the 1930s, Brigadier Sinton, a highly decorated doctor of the British Indian Army, and a pioneer in the field of malaria control in India, said 'the very problem of survival in India seems to be that of malaria'. Almost 8 decades later, we seem to be no better! At the time of India's independence, malaria was responsible for an estimated 75 million cases and 0.8 million deaths annually.

In January, entomologists will start deploying a strange bacterium called Wolbachia pipientis in an attempt to halt disease transmission by mosquitoes. Their target is Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits dengue, a human viral disease that causes crippling joint and muscle pains. Recent studies have shown that infection with Wolbachia makes mosquitoes resistant to the dengue virus. Now, a team at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, wants to test whether they can spread Wolbachia in the wild by setting free small numbers of mosquitoes infected with the microbe.

Malaria has been eliminated from over 40 countries with an additional 39 currently planning for, or committed to, elimination. Information on the likely impact of available interventions, and the required time, is urgently needed to help plan resource allocation.

Dengue fever is a virus infection that is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and can cause severe disease especially in children. Dengue fever is a major problem in tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world.

The effect of sub-lethal concentrations (LC20 =0.0002 and 0.001 ppm, and LC40 = 0.002 and 0.02 ppm for II and IV instar larvae respectively) of a dispersible concentrate formulation of the insect growth regulator, lufenuron on larval growth and development of Aedes aegypti was studied.

n the past 150 years, roughly half of the countries in the world eliminated malaria. Nowadays, there are 99 endemic countries