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Scientists say smell of old socks can help fightdeadly malaria by luring mosquitoes into trap

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By Associated Press, Published: July 13

NAIROBI, Kenya What do mosquitoes like more than clean, human skin? Stinky socks.

Scientists think the musky odor of human feet can be used to attract and kill mosquitoes

that carry deadly malaria. The Gates Foundation announced on Wednesday that it will help

fund one such pungent project in Tanzania.

If they can be cheaply ma ss-produced, the traps could provide the first practical way of

controlling malaria infections outside. The increased use of bed nets and indoor spraying

has a lready helped bring down transmissions inside homes.

Dutch scientist Dr. Bart Knols first

discovered mosquitoes were attracted to foot

odor by standing in a dark room naked and

examining where he was bitten, said Dr.Fredros Okumu, the head of the research

project at Tanzanias Ifakara Health

Institute. But over the following 15 years,

researchers struggled to put the know ledge

to use.

Then Okumu discovered that the stinky

smell which he replicates using a careful

blend of eight chemicals attracts

mosquitoes to a trap where they can be

poisoned. The odor of human feet attracted

four times as many mosquitoes as a human

volunteer and the poison can kill up to 95

percent of mosquitoes, he said.

Although the global infection rate of

malaria is going down, there are still more

than 220 million new cases of malaria each

year. The U.N. estimates a lmost 800,000 of those people die. Most of them are children in

Africa.

This is the first time that we are focusing on controlling mosquitoes outside of homes, said

Okumu, a Kenyan who has been ill with the disease himself several times. The global goal

of eradication of malaria w ill not be possible without new technologies.

Some experts worry eradication is unrealistic because of the lack of an effective malaria

vaccine and because some patients have developed resistance to the most effective malaria

medicines.

This is an interesting project, said Richard Tren, the director of health advocacy group

Africa Fighting Malaria. But there is no magic bullet. We are going to need a lot of

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