As co-development is one of Target Malaria’s core values, the team decided early on that the communities where we worked should design the agreement model. A dialogue was established to agree on a set of principles, namely – transparency, inclusiveness, and openness to different perspectives – and from this base the communities designed their own agreement model. They chose to establish a reference community group, representing the whole community that would communicate any decisions made by them to the project, after their consultation.

After gaining the necessary permit from the National Biosafety Agency (Agence Nationale de Biosécurité-ANB), the national competent authority in Burkina Faso, the team worked on non gene drive genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes – a phase  of the stepwise approach to develop Target Malaria’s genetic technologies for malaria vector control. These studies built on the competencies and training acquired during the facilities readiness process allowing the team to hone their skills further.  Requesting a permit for contained use from the ANB also helps to understand regulatory processes and strengthen the dialogue with stakeholders.

In July 2019 the team achieved a major milestone, the first release of non gene drive genetically modified mosquitoes – the first of its kind on the African continent. The modified mosquitoes were sterile males and therefore unable to pass on their genes in the wild. The village of Bana was selected to be the release site, as agreed per the agreement model developed by the community itself. The release helped the project to collect scientific data on mosquito flight patterns, dispersal, and their longevity.

The release was a success, and the team have provided feedback to the key stakeholders that were involved.  The results from the release were published in February 2022 in Nature Communications.

In 2022, the IRSS team embarked on a new phase of work on the non gene drive genetically modified  male bias mosquitoes. Following approval from regulatory authorities and community agreement, the team imported the male bias strain for contained use work in their Arthropod Containment Level 2 (ACL-2) insectary in Bobo-Dioulasso in 2022. Burkina Faso is again the first country in Africa to import and conduct contained use studies on the male bias strain. It follows the three years of successful work on the non gene drive genetically modified sterile male mosquitoes.

For more information: read our factsheet on the non gene drive genetically modified male bias mosquito