Friend or Foe

Zoonotic diseases – affecting both humans and animals – are a global health problem. Around 60% of recently-emerging infectious diseases have spread from wildlife, so finding better to ways to track and control these conditions in animals is critical to preventing epidemics in humans. Current monitoring techniques, such as testing trapped animals and sampling from bushmeat, can be difficult to implement and provide limited access to wild populations. One new proposal to better assess diseases in the wild is to use blood-sucking flies like the tsetse (pictured), harnessing their potential as natural 'flying syringes'. Researchers tested this idea by analysing the blood meals of thousands of flies in Gabon: they were able to identify which species they had fed on and detect the presence of malarial parasites. As techniques for analysing pathogens in blood continue to improve, blood-sucking flies, so often the cause of devastating diseases, could contribute to an innovative solution.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Image from Oregon State University
• Research from the Centre International de Recherches Médicales de Franceville, Franceville, Gabon
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0 licence
• Research published in eLife, March 2017