NEW DELHI, Dec. 3: A three-inch long fish may hold the key to the problem of controlling malaria which has come back with a vengeance.
Called “Gambusia Affinis Halbrooki”, it is a voracious eater of the larvae of anopheles Stephensi, the mosquito which spreads malaria in towns and cities.
The possibility of using this fish to control malaria has been successfully demonstrated in a two-year study in Hyderabad city.
The little publicised experiment which might change the strategy of the National Malaria Eradication Programme (NMEP) was performed by Dr. N. L. Sitaraman of the NMEP Regional Co-ordinating Organisation in Bangalore and Dr. M. A. Karim and Dr. G. Venkata Reddy of the Andhra Pradesh Health Department.
They released the fish Gambusia in all the 3, 800 wells in Hyderabad city. Immediately after release, the density of mosquito larvae in the wells was reduced by half. After six months, they found only 18 pupae in all the wells and as long as there were fish, the wells remained free of mosquito breeding. The malaria cases continued to be low or nil.
The cost of controlling malaria by keeping the wells breeding-free was only ₹15 a month.
Published – December 04, 2025 02:31 am IST
