The discovery of mosquito repellents in order to stop the malarial transmission seems to be have been pretty challenging for the past many years.

But now, a simple key strategy discovered by the research team at the London School of Tropical Medicine, will turn out to be a major breakthrough in the field of Malarial prevention. Malaria-infected children were more prone to malarial mosquitoes by producing distinctive skin smells, compared to uninfected children. It was found that the aldehydes were particularly high in odour samples (sweat), which act as a mosquito attractant.

The lead Investigator, Dr Ailie Robinson, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) said, “This is the first time that the skin odour of people naturally infected with malaria has been studied; we have shown that in people with malaria, the production of key volatile chemicals by the skin is altered, and this new ‘infected’ odour appears to be more attractive to mosquitoes.”

Professor James Logan, senior investigator and HOD of Disease Control at LSHTM said, “There’s a great need for development of new non-invasive diagnostic tools; using odours to detect the presence of malaria parasites could be such a novel method.”

The research team further plans to create mosquito bait traps using aldehydes, which might lead to the development of better mosquito repellents.