Neocolonial Experiment

How dangerous are gene drive mosquitos for Africa?

Prevent the spread of malaria-carrying mosquitoes in Africa – that is the expectation surrounding a new biotechnology called gene drives in which organisms are genetically modified so that they do not follow classic rules of inheritance. Concerns about the efficacy and impact of the technology are growing – yet gene drive research continues in Africa.

mosquito

Anopheles, a genus in the mosquito family, is the most common carrier of the malaria pathogen in humans. Photo: public domain on unsplash.com

Within the last decade, molecular and big data biology developments have opened doors to novel genetic engineering (GE) techniques deployed by the biotechnology industry, including synthetic biology based on clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR-Cas-9) gene editing techniques.1 Gene drives are an extreme form of GE that is part of the package of synthetic biology techniques.2 They are ‘mutagenic chain reactions’ designed to spread throughout a population – overriding Mendelian inheritance patterns.1 This means that a single trait introduced at one time could spread throughout an entire species and lead to that species becoming altered for a long period or facing extinction. 

In Africa, gene drives have been proposed as a tool to prevent the spread of malaria. Globally, gene drives are also being proposed for pest control in agriculture and environmental conservation – e.g. eradication of invasive species – and military applications. Instructively, the United States military Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is one of the largest funders of gene drive research.3 With the nature of gene drives being to spread rapidly through the population and to bring about irreversible changes, across national and international borders, they present a new level of risks and biosafety concerns globally and for Africa. It is especially concerning in the light that, currently, there are no international biosafety risk assessments in place to regulate gene drive organisms (GDO) to prevent environmental and health risks.

Position and influence of the African Union

The African Union (AU) has wholeheartedly endorsed gene drive technology.2 The AU Development Agency-New Partnership for Africa's Development (AUDA-NEPAD) in collaboration with various organisations, is spearheading efforts to explore the potential of gene drives for malaria control.4 Funding comes from the Open Philanthropy Project, a foundation started by a co-founder of Facebook. An AU report on emerging technologies highlights gene drive techniques like population suppression and replacement to combat malaria. In addition, AUDA-NEPAD conducts outreach activities, including meetings and workshops, across different regions of Africa, including Ghana (West Africa), Kenya (East Africa), Botswana (Southern Africa) and Gabon (Central Africa), in partnership with the International Life Sciences Institute Research Foundation. These are done to expedite the adoption of gene drives alongside permissive regulatory frameworks. Currently, gene drive regulation is featured under the biotechnology framework of the Commission of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Africa – a testing ground for gene drive experiments: the case of Target Malaria 

In Africa, the deployment of global gene drives for disease vector eradication is being pushed as the first potential gene drive application designed to eradicate the malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquitoes. The research and development (R&D) of transgenic and gene drive mosquitoes is largely carried out by a consortium called Target Malaria, comprised of American and European universities and research institutions – with partners from African research institutions.5 The biggest funders include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), the Open Philanthropy Project Fund, and DARPA. Individual laboratories also receive additional funding from a variety of sources to support their respective work, including the United Kingdom government (UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Medical Research Council), the Wellcome Trust (a UK-based charity), the European Commission, the Ugandan Ministry of Health, and the Ugandan National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST).6 

Target Malaria has been operating in several countries on the African continent including Burkina Faso, Ghana, Uganda, Mali, and most recently Cape Verde, and is touted as being the first to develop a gene drive application for release.5 Target Malaria specifies a phased approach by starting with the release of non-gene drive genetically modified (GM) sterile male mosquitoes in the first phase and ultimately the release of gene drives in further phases.3 Open releases of non-gene drive GM mosquitoes are intended to test the infrastructure and systems for the eventual release of gene drive mosquitoes. 

First ever releases of GM mosquitoes in Africa: the case of Burkina Faso 

Burkina Faso is the first country where Target Malaria released the non-gene drive GM mosquitoes Anopheles gambiae in the village of Bana on 1st July 2019, after obtaining approval from the National Biosafety Agency (Agence Nationale de Biosecurite – ABN). This took place following experiments on imported mosquitoes in 2016, which were led locally by the Institut de Recherche en Sciences de la Sante (IRSS). The open release – the first on the African continent – was done despite African civil society organisations (CSOs) raising numerous serious concerns and forewarnings for several years that the project was turning Africa into a testing ground for risky technologies. These groups argued that the open release was meant only for experimental purposes and not expected to deliver any benefits for malaria control and was thus highly unethical.7 Further, they argued that releasing GM male-sterile mosquitoes presented risks of inadvertent release of biting female mosquitoes because of imperfect sex sorting of mosquitoes, or the possible failure of the sterility mechanism. In addition, several different Anopheles mosquito species can transmit malaria, including A. arabiensis and A. funestus, and thus targeting only one species of mosquito may result in another species taking its place and continuing to transmit malaria, which could be harder to eradicate.6 Further concerns were raised about the lack of meaningful, open, and transparent consultation with affected communities. There was also no comprehensive risk assessment subject to open and transparent public consultations, as mandated by the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB), to which Burkina Faso is a party.7 Thus, the release took place without fulfilling the international obligation of prior informed consent. Other regulatory concerns included the lack of transboundary notification by Imperial College for the importation of GM insect eggs to Burkina Faso from the UK, as required by the CPB, to which the UK is also a Party.6

However, Target Malaria remains unrepentant and has sought and obtained  further approval to conduct experiments on GM male bias mosquitoes in 2022, and in doing so, is continuing to lay the ground for future experiments and releases of gene drive mosquitoes in the country.8 Despite initial laboratory work being undertaken, the country Mali has withdrawn from the Target Malaria project for unclear reasons. In Uganda, according to Target Malaria, the project is still nascent, focusing on conducting entomological mosquito collections from field sites on islands within Lake Victoria and mainland sites9, while in Ghana the project is still in the early stages.10 

Noteworthy is that all these projects are being done in collaboration with national research institutions, particularly the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) and the University of Ghana. 

Other GE projects in Africa

Other projects have emerged that include work on GE and gene drive mosquitoes. These include Transmission Zero – an international research programme – focused on gene drive technology development.11 Transmission Zero involves partners from Tanzania including the Ifakara Health Institute and the National Institute of Medical Research as well as researchers from Imperial College London in the UK. The University of California Malaria Initiative in Sao Tome and Principe also promotes gene drive systems, which adopt a phased approach as well.12 Additionally, Oxitec Company – which is a UK-based commercial company that produces GM mosquitoes and other insects –, in partnership with Association Mutualis and the Djibouti National Malaria Control Programme (PNLP), is developing GM mosquitoes of the species Anopheles stephensi to combat malaria.13 It is not certain to what extent adequate democratic public consultations have taken place with communities and what, if any, biosafety procedures have been adhered to, in embarking upon these projects by these institutions. This is especially pertinent considering the absence of internationally recognised biosafety governance mechanisms for African governments to regulate such experiments. Currently, guidance regarding the regulation of gene drive mosquitoes is still underway at the global level under the Convention for Biological Diversity (CBD) by way of an Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group working on Risk Assessment protocols. 

It is also worth noting that Oxitec has come under heavy criticism for not delivering on their promises after they released GM mosquitoes in other countries. Oxitec’s GM mosquitoes project in Mexico was abandoned after unintentional cross-breeding with non-GM mosquitoes occurred. In the Cayman Islands the Environmental Health Minister in 2018, confirmed that Oxitec’s GM mosquito trials had failed.14 Similar cases of discontinuation of GM mosquito trials have taken place in Malaysia and Panama. In India GM mosquito projects of Oxitec subsidiaries have been dormant for several years. The releases by Oxitec worldwide, including those in Florida and Brazil, continue to expose communities and environments to unnecessary risks.

The unsubstantiated claims of gene drive to eradicate malaria

The purported claims that gene drive technologies will eradicate malaria are unfounded and questionable. There is a lack of data necessary to predict the potential efficacy of gene drive technology, as in the case of the Anopheles gambiae, with studies showing resistance to gene drive constructs that are so far unsuccessfully countered by developing newer constructs.2 This has also been corroborated by a recent report released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2022, highlighting challenges with Target Malaria’s gene drive mosquitoes.15 These developments are a warning that the technologies are doomed to fail while exposing many African populations to risky technologies. Furthermore, claims by gene drive developers that risks are unlikely – including ecological and human health risks, are also unfounded as planned projects have no understanding of how other organisms in the ecosystem, such as fish, bats, flowers and insects, could respond to gene drive releases.2 At the moment, current risk assessment methods are inadequate for assessing gene drives. Therefore, it is particularly difficult to assess how ecosystems and species would behave across time and space, considering the potential accumulation of mutations that may occur due to off-target activity of CRISPR systems at each generation, which is also connected to the genetic diversity of targeted populations. With regards to health impacts, it is yet unknown how, for example, niche replacement could affect the transmission of malaria or other vector-borne diseases.16

Links to industrial agricultural gene drive systems 

The huge attention by the biotech industry on gene drive applications in the public health sector should not desensitize us from what is happening with agricultural gene drive applications. These are still ongoing with quiet support from large-scale agricultural corporations and include suggested applications for reversing herbicide resistance in weeds, livestock alterations, and suppression of pest species.3 Already, various patents exist for agricultural applications and there is also immense lobbying for a permissive gene drive policy by agribusiness, devoid of public discussion. 

Conclusion

Malaria is a huge public health challenge in Africa, resulting in massive casualties every year, which requires countries to seek interventions that eradicate the structural causes of malaria, such as clean water and sanitation, and strengthen the public health systems. The reliance on technofixes based on risky technologies such as gene drives is not the solution to solving this problem. These technologies stem from the same systems that have caused the health and agricultural crises globally.5 The BMGF funds these technologies while also investing directly in chemical corporations and agribusiness, which are creating the very public health problems that the Gates Foundation is purporting to address. 

Imperialist projects are not interested in bettering the lives of Africans. Africa’s agency in addressing health problems such as malaria is also overlooked by reductionist Western scientific approaches which have long been used to justify imperialist projects, as well as provide the necessary tools for their application, while denigrating and simultaneously appropriating indigenous scientific systems in the process. Just recently, the WHO certified Cape Verde as malaria-free, making it the third country in Africa to be so – yet the country is part of a new gene drive mosquito project.17 Cape Verde strengthens the country’s health system and provides an example for other countries to emulate. Should this not give us pause to question the motives of Target Malaria and others who foist GM and gene-drive mosquitoes on the continent since these are bound to fail, as has been revealed by recent examples?  

    17. Juli 2024

    Sabrina Masinjila ist Referentin für Landwirtschaft, Lebensmittel und Biodiversität am Afrikanischen Zentrum für Biodiversität, www.acbio.org.za

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    This article was originally published in German as part of GID MAGAZINE – Gen-ethischer Informationsdienst GID Nr. 269, May 2024. It is also part of an English-language dossier on Development Cooperation.