Releasing GM Mosquitoes in Burkina Faso is Dangerous

The Target Malaria project aims to eradicate malaria using the controversial gene drive technology. In 2019, the project released genetically modified, GM, mosquitoes in one village of the Burkina Faso, West Africa, but the local residents oppose further releases. Several scientific papers had highlighted major technical problems that are hampering the project advancement.

The Target Malaria project claims to be able to eradicate malaria by using gene drive technology to eliminate Anopheles mosquitoes, the malaria vectors. There are several gene drive projects around the world, targeting different species (insects, mammals, fungi, etc.), using different types of gene drives, and having different stages of the technology readiness. The details of these projects are provided in the Table 2 of the Gene Drives report, produced by ENSSER, the European Network of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility. The Target Malaria project, using the CRISPR/Cas9 system for the Anopheles gambiae elimination, is the most advanced project.

The project was conceived in Great Britain, at Imperial College London, in the laboratory led by Andrea Crisanti. The project experimental protocol is very complex: it comprises three phases, each phase focusing on a particular type (strain) of GM mosquitoes. Only the third phase is aiming to fight against malaria, and only this phase is based on the use of the gene drive technology. All the strains are produced by Crisanti’s team and must be imported to Burkina Faso for field trials. After importation, the mosquitoes are managed by the local Target Malaria team led by Abdoulaye Diabate; each phase should normally end with mosquito release by Diabate’s team.

The project is moving forward rapidly, thanks to huge capital injections, coming primarily from the Bill Gates Foundation. The project is strongly supported by the NEPAD, New Partnership for Africa’s Development, an African Union agency. The NEPAD, which favors gene drives, has appointed ABNE, the African Biosafety Network of Expertise, to oversee Target Malaria experiment. The ABNE is funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, and the NEPAD  – by the Open Philanthropy Project, one of Target Malaria’s funding sources.

In 2019, within the framework of the first project phase, Target Malaria released 6,400 GM mosquitoes in the Bana village of the Burkina Faso, despite the Burkinabe civil society protests. The project is currently in its second phase, which began in March 2022, following the importation of the second-phase strain into Burkina Faso. Normally, before importing a strain for field trials, the Crisanti team conducts numerous tests to ensure the strain’s quality, and only the strain that meets all the criteria defined by the experimenter is accepted for importation. However, the project has encountered setbacks.

A few months after the importation of the second-phase strain, several scientific articles were published reporting the detection of technical problems encountered during the strain obtention process. Unfortunately, this was a late detection, which occurred after importation.

In October 2022, Andrea Crisanti, the project designer, published a co-authored article showing that the second-phase strain has significant defects that, according to the article, could have “multiple implications for disease transmission as well as ecological adaptation.” This article is a kind of self-criticism on the part of the project designer.

The production of GM mosquitoes involves two steps:

• The transfer of the targeted gene into the mosquito’s genetic material (using genetic transformation). A gene is a hereditary unit that controls a trait.
• The repeated crosses of the resulting product to the local mosquitoes (using the backcross technique). The backcross phase serves to ensure the GM strain’s adaptation to the local environment.

The article explains, that in the case of the Target Malaria experiment, the backcross phase did not work well, which led to the defects in the second-phase strain. The article provides explanations for the lack of backcross effectiveness: the project did not take into account the complexity of the studied phenomena. More specifically, it did not take into account the presence of some genetic phenomena, such as the chromosomal inversions, the genes that determine malaria transmission capacity, the genes that determine adaptation to humidity/aridity, etc.

Another project problem stems from the fact that the project did not control mosquito rearing conditions, particularly with regard to humidity. The mosquitoes were kept under standard mosquito rearing conditions at the temperature of 28 ± 1°C and 80% ± 10% of relative humidity, which is quite humid. The article attributes the ineffectiveness of the backcross procedure, at least in part, to the humid conditions of the experiment.

This explanation is linked to a very recent information showing that humidity can influence backcross result. This information is coming from the study of Riehle et al. 2017, which discovered that each mosquito population has two categories of individuals:

• the mosquitoes resting inside houses (because they are adapted to arid conditions), this category has a low capacity to transmit malaria, and
• the mosquitoes resting outside (because they are adapted to humidity) and have a high capacity to transmit malaria.

The implication of this information is very important for the malaria transmission capacity of mosquitoes. Regarding the project, the mosquito rearing, carried out in humid conditions, favors the selection of mosquitoes that, on the one hand, are adapted to humidity, and on the other hand, have a high capacity to transmit malaria (the two traits are inherited together).

The complexity of the studied phenomena (the inheritance of gene drives, the interactions at the ecosystem level, etc.), as well as the lack of knowledge on these issues, constitute one of the major criticisms raised by the opponents of gene drive tests in open environment. The second phase of the project does not yet concern gene drive, but even at this stage, the research work is becoming too complex.

Moreover, scientist Andrea Crisanti, the author of over 100 scientific publications, is also a politician, a member of the Italian Senate, and for several years now, he has not been very active in Target Malaria.

Other criticisms of the second phase were made by Vitale et al., who are the also the Target Malaria researchers, and by the TESTBIOTECH research group. Despite all these critical publications, and contrary to any logic, the local Target Malaria team sought, in 2024,  an agreement with the Burkinabe civil society for releases of the second phase strain, while remaining completely silent about the strain’s problems and the publications that reported them. On August 6, 2024, Abdoulaye Diabaté, the head of the local team, gave an interview to the Burkinabe daily Sidwaya, stating that the project was going well and that “we are gradually moving towards the third phase,” based on gene drive.

This attempt to obtain the agreement for releases failed, following the opposition from the Burkinabe population, worried about the releases consequences on health and ecosystems. On May 30, 2024, in the press conference, the Coalition for Monitoring Biotechnology Activities in Burkina Faso, composed of COPAGEN, COASP, AfriTap, FIAN Burkina Faso, Terre à Vie and CNABio, expressed its firm opposition to the release of second-phase GM mosquitoes and for the gene drive tests in Burkina Faso and in Africa. The Coalition asked the ANB, National Biosafety Agency, to “refuse to grant a new authorization for the release of mosquitoes.”

In response to criticism, during the audience with Burkinabe local authorities (special municipal delegation of Bobo-Dioulasso town), held on March 27, 2025, the ANB representatives affirmed that “all measures have being taken to ensure the safe use of genetically modified mosquitoes.”

The third project phase, the phase yet under preparation in London, has been also criticized: the WHO expert report 2022 (World Health Organization) identified several technical problems:

The gene drive model used by Target Malaria does not work; in particular, the genetic construct has become unstable following a mutation, which compromises the model’s effectiveness.

The project has a difficulty to define the mosquito species that should be targeted by gene drive technology. The project aims to eliminate malaria-carrying mosquitoes, but there are several species of Anopheles mosquitoes that carry malaria. At this stage, the project has not yet been able to define all the Anopheles species that should be targeted.

These technical problems demonstrate that gene drive technology is not yet ready for use and that the goal of malaria eradication, as defined by the project, is difficult to achieve. Moreover, there are suspicions that malaria eradication is merely a pretext for conducting gene drive test in an open environment. For the Coalition for Monitoring Biotechnology Activities in Burkina Faso, if the real goal of the Target Malaria project was to end the malaria in Burkina Faso, there are less risky solutions than biotechnology to achieve this goal: the sound environmental management policy, the promotion of artemesia, a well-known plant in Burkina Faso, etc.

The discovery by Riehle et al. 2017, confirmed by other researchers, is of great interest for improving the conventional methods of the malaria fighting, which until now have primarily targeted the mosquitoes that remain indoors, through the use of mosquito nets and insecticides. This discovery demonstrated the interest to change strategies by focusing on the insects that primarily remain outdoors.

Gene drive is a high-risk experiment! The international scientific community is very concerned about gene drive experiment. The Target Malaria project is seeking to conduct the world’s first open environment gene drive trial, choosing Burkina Faso as its testing ground.

Gene drive is a new technology that is still poorly understood. The first experiment (in cages), demonstrating the feasibility of gene drive application to Anopheles mosquitoes was conducted in 2018 by Andrea Crisanti and his team.

Gene drive is a very powerful technology that causes profound and unprecedented changes in nature. By circumventing the laws of heredity (known as Mendel’s laws), the gene drive is capable to rapidly wipe out an entire species.

Normally, a mutation is inherited, according to Mendel’s laws, by 50% of offspring. However, in the case of gene drive, a mutation is inherited by nearly 100% of the offspring. The project involves production of the mutations that disrupt the reproduction of the Anopheles gambiae species, leading to the birth of the only male individuals. Thus, the dissemination of these forced genes will cause the disappearance of the entire species.

Gene drive is a highly controversial technology that was the subject of calls for a global moratorium during the CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) negotiations in 2016 and in 2018. The scientists emphasize that gene drive still exists only in laboratory and is not ready for field testing due to its high degree of uncertainty. Mosquitoes are important components of ecosystems, their role is not yet well understood, and ecosystems have a high capacity to adapt and to resist to the changes imposed by humans. Mosquitoes are pollinators and important components of the food chain. Eliminating of the anopheles mosquito species, vectors of malaria, the strategy chosen by Target Malaria to eradicate malaria, may not necessarily solve the problem since other malaria vectors can emerge to fill an empty ecological niche. This suppression can also have the unexpected negative impacts on the ecosystems.

Despite the concerns of the scientific community, Abdoulaye Diabaté, head of the local Target Malaria team, in his explanations intended for the general public, trivializes the gene drive use. For him, the gene drive is “a specific system that we have and that we attach to the mosquito, and this will mean that we no longer need to release too many mosquitoes. For example, once in a village, we can just release a few mosquitoes, and these mosquitoes will do the work. It will no longer be necessary to release them in other surrounding villages. The mosquitoes will take care of taking the gene of interest to other mosquitoes. And this could go even beyond Burkina Faso. That’s what makes this technology so beautiful.”

However, where Diabate sees beauty, others see danger. Several scientific publications highlighted that the gene drive mosquitoes have the potential to spread over vast geographical areas; this means that, once released in a given country, they can spread beyond national borders, causing multiple political and ecological problems. Unlike the first-generation GM organisms, such as Bt cotton, well-known in Burkina Faso (mostly known for its failure), these organisms can spread autonomously and persist in the environment, making them difficult to contain.

Irina Vekcha is Professor of genetics at ENSA (University of Agriculture, Senegal) and scientific advisor at the NGO Terre à Vie (Burkina Faso).