By Mireia Larrosa Godall, PhD student, Alphey Lab, University of York

From October 18-22, I attended the 2023 annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) in Chicago. This annual conference, held over the course of five days, gathered participants from around the world in the fields of tropical medicine and global health. As part of the meeting, I had the opportunity to present a poster on findings from our research at the University of York to develop new tools to control the invasive malaria mosquito Anopheles stephensi.

An. stephensi is an urban malaria vector mainly present in South Asia and the Arabian Peninsula. Since 2012 it has been detected on the African continent where it has rapidly spread, posing a significant threat to malaria control efforts in Africa. An. stephensi thrives in man-made environments and has been found to be resistant to several insecticides, making the development of novel approaches to control this vector crucial. With the predicted increase in the proportion of urban population and recent evidence of An. stephensi driving an urban malaria outbreak in Africa, it will be important to control it before it becomes endemic.