SINISTER MOVE?

Activists oppose sterilised mosquitoes in Kenya

An NGO makes unsubstantiated claims that it is a ploy to "finish" the black race.

In Summary

• Global Prolife Alliance claims the technology used on the mosquitoes is "very" harmful.

• The organisation leader, Dr Philip C. Njemanze, without evidence says the mosquito is engineered to cause infertility in humans and animals through its saliva.

A mosquito net./FILE
A mosquito net./FILE

An NGO with roots in Nigeria has written to the United Nations’ Security Council to oppose a planned release of sterilised mosquitoes in Africa, calling it as the "final solution" to exterminate the black African race. 

The NGO, calling itself Global Prolife Alliance (GPA), has previously accused American billionaires of plotting insurgencies in Africa to "finish" the black race. 

It says the planned release of sterilising genetically modified mosquitoes in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and others by the research consortium ‘Target Malaria’, is sinister.

"We hereby call on the United Nations to immediately enact an international ban on the release of the sterilizing GMO mosquitoes because scientific evidence shows it will sterilize humans and animals also," says the letter to Diana Triansyah Djani, president of the UN’ Security Council.

It claims the technology used on the mosquitoes is "very" harmful.

The organisation leader, Dr Philip C. Njemanze, without evidence says the mosquito is engineered to cause infertility in humans and animals through its saliva.

The GMO mosquitoes proposed for release this year are Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes, which have been genetically modified to be male-sterile.

"Even though this is a program for irreversible sterilization as the ‘Final Solution’ to the Black Africa Population Question by Neo-Nazi modern-day biotechnologists and their sponsor a fake billionaire-philanthrocapitalism, there may be other unintended consequences," he claims in the letter dated July 25. 

The UN did not respond to the letter. 

The release is planned by Target Malaria, a not-for-profit research consortium that aims to develop and share new, cost-effective and sustainable genetic technologies to modify mosquitoes and reduce malaria transmission.

 

Scientists plan to release the altered mosquitoes to sabotage the species' ability to reproduce, and thereby control malaria.

In the US, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has approved a plan by a British biotech company called Oxitec to release about 1 billion genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes in the Florida Keys and, next year, Texas.

In Africa, the first release was 5,000 sterilised mosquitoes in Burkina Faso September last year.

Malaria kills more than 400,000 people across the continent every year, and the World Health Organization says progress against the disease is stalling, leading researchers to push for fresh approaches.

“The conventional tools that we have at our disposal today have reached their limit,” said Dr Abdoulaye Diabate, who is running the experiment for Target Malaria, a research consortium backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

WATCH: The latest videos from the Star