Sweat socks smell against malaria

Unusual study: Stinky sock smell is said to contribute to malaria prevention

07/13/2011

Stinking socks could help to significantly reduce the number of malaria infections in the future. The dirty garments have a more attractive effect on the malaria-transmitting mosquitoes than sleeping people, reports Fredros Okumu of the Ifakara Health Institute (Ifakara Health Institute) in Tanzania, told AFP.

As part of their research, Ifakara Health Institute researchers have been able to show that the malaria-transmitting mosquitoes can not distinguish whether human odors emanate from a human or an object. For example, human odors can be transferred to objects to specifically attract and kill the mosquitoes, the non-governmental organization Grand Challenges Canada said in its latest research from the Ifakara Health Institute.

Welding foot odor traps are designed to attract mosquitoes
As part of their research, Fredros Okumu and colleagues developed a synthetic stinking sock odor that serves as a bait to lure malaria-transmitting mosquitoes into a novel insect trap. The scientists studied how the mosquitoes moved in rooms containing both sleeping people and the smell of humans smelling odors. Okumu and colleagues found that the mosquitoes can not distinguish between humans and objects as an odor source. This opens up the possibility of using the synthetically developed odorant as a novel insect trap, according to the results of Fredros Okumu and colleagues. The number of malaria infections could potentially be reduced by the comprehensive listing of new traps, said the non-governmental organization Grand Challenges Canada, which, together with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, supports the research of Fredros Okumu. About 550,000 euros have been made available to the scientist, so that the mosquito traps developed on the basis of his research results can be set up in villages in Tanzania and concomitant investigations into the effects on the malaria infection risk.

Sustainably reduce the risk of infection from malaria
In the future, the malaria infection could be significantly reduced by the synthetic smell of welding feet, the experts hope. Fredros Okumu explained that his new device may be „Part of the solution will be“. According to the non-governmental organization Grand Challenges Canada, there are yearly „Nearly 250 million new cases of malaria and nearly 800,000 people die of the disease.“ Around 90 percent of the deaths were recorded in Africa and 92 percent of the deaths were children under the age of five, said the Grand Challenges Canada. The novel mosquito traps could potentially reduce the risk of infection significantly, so the experts hope. And since the mosquitoes can also transmit other infectious diseases such as dengue fever, the risk of infection may also be reduced in these infectious diseases. (Fp)

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Picture: Karin Jung