Challenges and opportunities in controlling mosquito-borne infections

Abstract

Mosquito-borne diseases remain a major cause of morbidity and mortality across the tropical regions. Despite much progress in the control of malaria, malaria-associated morbidity remains high, whereas arboviruses-most notably dengue-are responsible for a rising burden of disease, even in middle-income countries that have almost completely eliminated malaria. Here I discuss how new interventions offer the promise of considerable future reductions in disease burden. However, I emphasize that intervention programmes need to be underpinned by rigorous trials and quantitative epidemiological analyses. Such analyses suggest that the long-term goal of elimination is more feasible for dengue than for malaria, even if malaria elimination would offer greater overall health benefit to the public.