How Bill Gates is Fighting Against Spread of Malaria with One Post at a Time

Mosquito-borne diseases are one of the most plaguing issues around the world and billionaire Bill Gates frequently shares posts on awareness programs on Twitter and his blogs. In one of his tweets posted last year, Gates shared a significant fact about the dangers associated with mosquitoes.

Bill Gates stated that mosquitoes kill more people in one day than sharks killed over the last 100 years. In the information sourced from WHO, Global Shark Attack File, the billionaire revealed that while there have been around 1035 deaths due to shark attacks between 1916 and 2016, as many as 1470 people get killed because of mosquitoes in a day in 2016.

The founder of Microsoft is firm in his fight against Malaria and eradicating the mosquito-borne disease. In his latest blog about Malaria, titled ‘The world’s deadliest shapeshifter’, Gates has written about how the malaria parasite changes shape to foil the human immune system. He has also focused on the ingenious new genetic techniques for fighting mosquitoes and maps that could help us defeat malaria.

Writing about the malarial parasite Plasmodium, Gates said that these shapeshifters are responsible for more than 400,000 deaths every year. These parasites, who have figured out ingenious ways to fool the human immune system, have also evaded most of the malaria vaccines.

Sharing another opinion piece from The New York Times a few days ago, the billionaire has spoken about the deadliest hunters of human beings on the planet. Sharing a Nature’s report, the article suggests that mosquitoes may have killed nearly half of the 108 billion humans who have ever lived across our 200,000-year or more existence.

The article gives details on the spread of malaria, its vector Female Anopheles, and the parasite that causes Malaria, Plasmodium. Writing a brief history on the spread of malaria and yellow fever during various historical events and wars, the article focuses on the deadly cases of malaria. The report also suggests that even today, more than 200 million unlucky people contract malaria each year.