By Susan Milius
VANCOUVER — Adult female mosquitoes could be surfing air currents high above the West African Sahel. This traffic, at least 40 meters up, might be troubling news for efforts to control malaria.
Traps attached to balloons flown over villages in Mali caught close to 3,000 mosquitoes at heights between 40 and 290 meters above the ground, where winds might blow the insects long distances. That sample, collected in multiple all-night sessions spaced over three years, was roughly 80 percent adult female, the mosquito life stage that can transmit malaria.