Genetically modified mosquitoes are what scientists at London’s Imperial College now offer. Among mosquitoes, the females are the blood-suckers. They inject deadly stuff into the venules, and sooner than later the stuff finds its way into vital organs. The males are benign, preferring to sip plant juices. It’s here that the geneticists have hit the nail on the head. By creating, in the laboratory, a fully fertile strain that produces 95 per cent male offspring, the researchers hope to limit the number of females.
Yet, the femme fatale could continue to sing. “My Bonny lies over the ocean,” perhaps? Or better still, my Bonny lays ova the ocean. This master of mayhem may mutate and come back with new vigour. This time around, they could be humming, “We shall overcome”, while the less sophisticated among them may make do with, “ Hum ladenge, ya marenge ”. They get cockier by the day. After all, the swarms have always outwitted us despite all that has been thrown at them, and attempts to end breeding by covering up water bodies.
I see many pitfalls. Remember the issue of GM cotton and brinjal? No one is going to trust blindly those cunning capitalists. They may get the monopoly of the favoured strains; they could then hold us poor natives to ransom, hiking fees from time to time. A terrorist group could produce and unleash a particularly virulent breed of the winged tormentors. Heavens forbid!
Not that the ‘firangi’ friends have had it good always. Did not Alexander the Great ultimately surrender to the posse from hell? After conquering most of the world, he died of malarial fever. D.H. Lawrence describes how a single mosquito tormented him through the night. Somerset Maugham’s hapless administrators fret and fume and slap their arms even as they count the number of days left to complete their hated posting in the South Sea Islands.
Granted, it was ultimately an Englishman who proved that mosquitoes carried the embryonic forms of the malarial parasite. Sir Ronald Ross has an institute in Kolkata named in his honour. Recently, Bill Gates went on record that by far the most dangerous creature is the mosquito, given the number of deaths and debility it carries around. The billionaire has taken a special interest in research on this menace, particularly in the Third World.
kuruvila2004@yahoo.com
