Has America forgotten its heroes?
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This week I attended the 79th annual meeting of the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA), which was held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA.I was honoured to be invited to give a keynote lecture on the first day of the meeting, with the title 'If Gates gave you 10 million for mosquito research, what would you do with it?'. Steve Mulligan, vice president of the AMCA, in charge of the scientific programme of the meeting asked me to touch on the importance of 'out-of-the-box' science and the need that we have to come forward with radical and transformational new ideas to control vectors of disease.
One of my favorite subjects in that regard is to look at the past. Of where the world already eliminated malaria and what we can learn from this. That 800 million people now live in areas where there used to be malaria, but where people now put their kids to bed without having to worry about it anymore. And, may I humbly add to this: It was done without a vaccine…
