Editorial Commentary: Ivermectin as a Complementary Strategy to Kill Mosquitoes and Stop Malaria Transmission?

(See the Major Article by Ouédraogo et al on pages 357–65.) Vector control/killing has been a long and durable strategy for malaria control across the globe. Current efforts to kill or dramatically shorten the life span of female Anopheles mosquitoes have honed the use of insecticides to specifically meet the biology of mosquito biting and resting behaviors, including putting insecticide on long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) where the mosquito lands when trying to reach the person sleeping under the net and indoor residual spraying (IRS) of insecticide on house walls where a blood-fed mosquito often lands and rests before flying off to lay her eggs. There is now much attention focused on methods to kill the mosquitoes that escape these interventions because they bite when people are not yet under LLINs or because they rest or feed outside the sprayed house—but they all must bite to get their blood meals to support egg development and mosquito reproduction. Thus, a systemic endectocidal drug like ivermectin, which can be given to both humans and animals and is toxic to Anopheles mosquitoes when they take a blood meal from a host that has recently received it, provides an intriguing opportunity to kill the remaining mosquitoes that avoid or survive our existing vector control interventions [1, 2].