An idea to suppress malaria infection by adding 'mosquito-killing poison' to human blood, a drug to replace ivermectin is discovered

To combat malaria, it is useful to reduce the population of malaria-transmitting mosquitoes. A new study by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has revealed that the blood of people who have taken nitisinone , a drug used to treat hypertyrosinemia, acts as a 'mosquito-killing poison.'

Anopheles mosquito survival and pharmacokinetic modeling show the mosquitocidal activity of nitisinone | Science Translational Medicine
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adr4827

Rare disease drug nitisinone makes human blood deadly to mosquitoes | News | Notre Dame News | University of Notre Dame
https://news.nd.edu/news/rare-disease-drug-nitisinone-makes-human-blood-deadly-to-mosquitoes/

The idea of adding a toxic substance to blood that kills mosquitoes is not new, and the antiparasitic drug ivermectin is already used for a similar purpose. However, in areas where ivermectin is used heavily, there is a problem that mosquitoes have developed resistance to ivermectin. Therefore, the research team focused on nitisinone and analyzed its effectiveness against mosquitoes.

Ivermectin, a drug that kills mosquitoes that suck blood, reduces malaria by 20% - GIGAZINE

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Nitisinone inhibits the enzyme 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD), which, when administered to humans, can prevent the accumulation of harmful disease by-products. HPPD is an important enzyme for mosquitoes in digesting blood, and when a mosquito sucks the blood of a human who has taken nitisinone and ingests it, it is unable to digest the blood properly, leading to death.

The team conducted experiments to determine the dosage of nitisinone required to kill mosquitoes, and found that a daily dose of 2 mg of nitisinone was enough to make human blood mosquito-killing.

The insecticidal effect of nitisinone was also found to last longer than that of ivermectin, and it was also found to be more effective at killing mosquitoes than ivermectin.

'In the future, alternating the use of both nitisinone and ivermectin may be an advantageous way to control mosquitoes. For example, nitisinone may be effective in areas where resistance to ivermectin remains or where ivermectin is already being administered to livestock and humans,' said Lee Ruffs-Haynes, a member of the research team. It has also been pointed out that widespread use of nitisinone could lead to increased production, making it cheaper for patients with hypertyrosinemia.

The research team plans to conduct field trials and other studies to determine the most effective dose of nitisinone.