Mark Hoppé

Mark Hoppé

I am a Public Health entomologist with a particular interest in integrated mosquito vector control and insecticide resistance management. When I'm not working with mosquitoes I enjoy cycling.

Location Basel, Switzerland

Activity

  • Greetings Issack, I hope the course meets your expectations.

  • I'm glad you found the article useful. The article can be used in your teaching, but please acknowledge the author and the copyright of the University of Basel.

  • That is a really good question. There are 'gene drive' approaches, where a genetically modified mosquitoes could be used to spread specific genes within the mosquito population. These genes could potentially prevent future generations of the mosquitoes developing, reducing, or even eliminating, the population. Genes that prevented the Anopheles mosquitoes...

  • Good point. The principles of integrated vector management, IVM, and insecticide resistance management, IRM, are broadly the same for Anopheline malaria vectors and the Aedes spp. vectors of viral diseases. However, the actual control measures may be different due to their different habitats, feeding behaviours, and the local context.

  • A good summary

  • Greetings Filémon, I hope you find the course useful

  • Welcome John, I hope you find the course useful.

  • The unchecked use of pesticides doesn't make the mosquitoes more 'deadly', but it can make them much harder to control, reducing our ability to prevent the diseases they can vector. So it can make the situation, or environment, more deadly, as we are less able to protect people from mosquito borne diseases.

  • Well said, community engagement is the foundation to build on.

  • Good points, too often we think only on the global scale, but in the end, malaria vector control is undertaken at the local level. Without engaging with all stakeholders, it will be a much harder task to eliminate malaria.

  • Welcome to the MOOC Huicong

  • Welcome Alemayehu, I hope you find some useful information in the course.

  • I like that analogy.

  • Some good points, this will be a challenge for many locations as they start to approach malaria elimination.

  • Some good points, an 'integrated' approach will always be the best way. Reducing mosquito numbers by making the environment less favorable to them is an important step, especially when it is human activities that make the favorable environment in the first place. This is addressed in several steps of the MOOC.

  • Hello Flavia, welcome to the course, I hope you do find useful information here.

  • Some good thoughts Daniel

  • Hi Ruth, I hope the course meets your expectations.

  • Hello James, I hope you find this course useful.

  • Greetings, I hope you find the course interesting and informative.

  • Welcome to the course, I hope you find it useful.

  • I hope you find the course useful.

  • Hello Ahmed, I hope you find the course useful.

  • Greetings Jeremiah, welcome to the MOOC.

  • Welcome Candice, I hope the course lives up to expectation.

  • Some very good points, especially about town planning and improved drainage. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

  • Welcome! I hope you find the course useful and informative.

  • Welcome, I hope you find the course useful.

  • Some very good points.

  • Welcome Mohammed, you make some good points, I look forward to hearing your contributions in later steps of the course.

  • That is correct, but within the 'adulticides', that kill the adults, and the 'larvicides', that kill or prevent the larvae from developing, there are a number of different classes of insecticide. This is important to know for effective resistance management.

  • Welcome to the MOOC Stephen!

  • Welcome Isaac, I hope this course will help you to gain more knowledge about malaria control and insecticide resistance management

  • Thanks Anna, a good summary. I think the key is to have integrated approaches in the wider context of 'One Health'.

  • Good points

  • Hello Monica, I hope you find the course interesting and useful

  • Hi, welcome to the course. I hope you find the course useful.

  • Non-vector control exposure, is referring to the mosquitoes coming into contact with the insecticides used for vector control in other situations where they weren't used specifically for mosquito control. e.g. if insecticides from the same mode of action groups are used in agriculture. In this situation the mosquitoes may rest on treated crops, or the larvae...

  • Good point that a rotational approach to the use of insecticides from different MoA classes will help delay resistance development. But, the scientists and chemists can only try to design novel and improved insecticides, it is those who design and fund the control programmes that decide which interventions to use, and should be encouraged to implement IRM in...

  • Hi Julia, This MOOC doesn't look in any further detail at the parasites that cause malaria. There are a number of excellent online courses that do, so look them up if would like to know more about the Plasmodium. Good question about whether the parasite is also changing. Yes, is the answer, and there is a lot of concern about drug resistance in the Plasmodium....

  • It has been estimated that between 2000 and 2015 663 million cases of malaria were averted through the use of insecticidal vector control interventions. That's a lot of people who think the use of LLINs and IRS was a clever idea. See https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15535

  • Hi, the subject of this course is insecticide resistance management. This has to be set in the context of wider vector control, but that isn't the main topic. The course aims to set IRM firmly in the context of Integrated Vector Management (IVM). In IVM (also called IV Control) the aim is to minimise the interaction of vector mosquitoes and humans. IVM covers...

  • The WHO study did not include untreated mosquito nets, but compared insecticide treated nets in areas where there were pyrethroid resistant or susceptible mosquito populations. The conclusion is that even if there are pyrethroid resistant mosquitoes present, a pyrethroid treated bed net still provides some protection against malaria. The comparison with an...

  • @EvelynF It is good that industrial companies produce pyrethroid, or other insecticide, interventions for malaria vector control. Without such interventions the burden of malaria would be much greater.

  • Hi Evelyn, I would encourage you to visit the IVCC website to learn more about their PPP model.

  • You are right about the number of mosquito species that have been shown to transmit disease, also, of the 3500 known mosquito species, only about 6% bite humans. Perhaps it would have been better to have written in the article, 'not having any mosquitoes interacting with humans'.

  • LLINs can be distributed once every two or three years, whereas IRS needs to be applied at least once per year, and can be logistically more challenging to undertake.

  • Hi Evelyn, the course was funded by the IVCC and UKAid, links can be found at the bottom of the landing page of the MOOC. Much of the material was produced voluntarily by members of the RBM VCWG https://endmalaria.org/our-work-working-groups/vector-control

    Good question about the comparison between untreated nets, and treated nets. Untreated nets work well,...

  • The comparison is between populations living in areas where there is either 'high' or 'low' pyrethroid insecticide resistance. All evaluated populations would have had access to LLINs, but as the report says, they were still exposed to a high malaria infection risk. Other studies, have found that the use of non-pyrethroid insecticides, in addition to LLINs, or...

  • Hello Sören, welcome to the MOOC, I hope you find it interesting.

  • Hello Ntoumba, welcome to the course

  • Hello, welcome to the course, I hope you find it useful.

  • Good point, and it highlights that sometimes the situation becomes complex. If one vector species is 'resistant' to one insecticidal mode of action, and a different vector species (living in the same area) is 'resistant' to a different spectrum of insecticides, how do you account for this in developing an IRM programme?

  • We are glad you found the course useful.

  • Hello, Welcome to the course, I hope you gain the insights you are looking for.

  • Hello, welcome to the MOOC.

  • All the material and videos can also be accessed at any time with this link https://tales.nmc.unibas.ch/en/the-resistant-mosquito-43/

  • Hi, welcome to the course.

  • Do you think there will be problems with the mosquitoes developing 'resistance' to biological control methods?

  • Hello Dr Ukpai, welcome to the course.

  • The WHO announcement relating to this malaria vaccine give more background to this https://www.who.int/news/item/06-10-2021-who-recommends-groundbreaking-malaria-vaccine-for-children-at-risk

  • Welcome to the course

  • Hi Reza, I hope you find the course useful

  • Thank you for your kind words, I hope you have found the course useful, and enjoyable.

  • Mark Hoppé made a comment

    As we come to the end of this three week MOOC, the course team would like to thank you for discovering more about Insecticide Resistance Management with us. We would also like to thank you for you participation in the discussions, which have enriched the course. If you have missed a step, or would like to revisit one of them, all the course material is...

  • Mark Hoppé made a comment

    As we come to the end of this three week MOOC, the course team would like to thank you for discovering more about Insecticide Resistance Management with us. We would also like to thank you for you participation in the discussions, which have enriched the course. If you have missed a step, or would like to revisit one of them, all the course material is...

  • As we come to the end of this three week MOOC, the course team would like to thank you for discovering more about Insecticide Resistance Management with us. We would also like to thank you for you participation in the discussions, which have enriched the course. If you have missed a step, or would like to revisit one of them, all the course material is...

  • Hello Stephen, I'm glad you have enjoyed the course. I hope your further studies go well.

  • Welcome to the course

  • Hi Willy, that's a good summary of this step

  • Hi, pyrethroid insecticides, which are widely used on insecticide treated bed nets, target the sodium channels in the nerves of insects. There are 'mutations' at the sodium channel that can stop the pyrethroids binding, greatly reducing their effectiveness. There are several similar 'mutations', collectively called 'kdr' or knockdown resistance. Insecticides...

  • In situations where they are effective, and cost effective, they should be used as part of an integrated approach. Do you have any examples of such biological control methods?

  • Hello Spyton, welcome to the course

  • Hello Odete, welcome to the course.

  • Hello Jennifer, welcome to the course

  • Hi Derrick, synergists, such as PBO, inhibit the action of certain enzymes that can be involved in insecticide resistance. Mosquitoes that have elevated levels of these enzymes may be able to metabolise, or degrade, the insecticide before they reach toxic concentrations. It they are exposed to a synergist, these enzymes are inhibited, and the rate at which...

  • Thanks, that is a very good summary.

  • @StephenPanossian There are often very difficult choices to be made in a resource constrained environment. Do you increase the number of dwellings sprayed with IRS, or have a lower coverage of IRS, but include larviciding in the areas where you do? Likewise, implementing an IRM programme may require the use of more expensive interventions; unless your budget...

  • @StephenPanossian Would there be selection pressure on GM mosquitoes, in which the malaria plasmodium were unable to successfully develop, for them to 'return' to the type that could vector the plasmodium? Or would the selection pressure now be firmly on the plasmodium to enable it to be vectored by such mosquitoes?

  • That's a really good question. There is evidence of hybridization between Anopheles species, so it might be possible for genes associated with insecticide resistance to be passed between closely related species.

    There is also evidence that microbes that live in the guts of mosquitoes may have some impact on how susceptible the mosquitoes are to...

  • Good points, mosquito vector control is more than just handing out bed nets, you need to understand the social context and environment and take a wholistic approach.

  • Welcome! I hope you find the course useful.

  • Hi Dorcas good observations. Any insecticide residues that find their way into the water bodies that the mosquito larvae are in will select for less susceptible individuals, eventually leading to 'resistance' in the mosquito population. This can be a real problem if insecticides with the same mode of action are used both in agriculture and vector control....

  • Very good summary of the main resistance mechanisms.

  • Good comments

  • Thanks for the comments Keith. By gene editing, do you mean the release of genetically modified mosquitoes? Do you think they should be modified to reduce the overall size of the mosquito population, or to prevent them successfully vectoring the malaria parasite? And do you think this would then remove the need for insecticide based interventions?

    It...

  • Good comment Herbert, IRM should be considered a long term activity.

    In the agricultural setting rotations of insecticide are recommended such that the subsequent generations of the pest are not exposed to the same insecticide mode of action class. As agricultural pests have quite short lifecycles, the insecticides may be rotated between different MoA...

  • Hello, welcome to the course, I hope you find it useful.

  • Greetings Geetha, welcome to the MOOC.

  • Hello Jennifer, I hope you find the MOOC useful.

  • Hello Philip, welcome to the course.

  • Hello Oyewole, welcome to the course

  • Greetings, welcome to the course, I hope it enables you to learn more about insecticide resistance in vectors of disease.

  • Good point. As the insecticides used in bed nets, wall sprays or larvicides degrade over time, eventually they will reach a level where not all the mosquitoes that interact with them are controlled. At this point those that are naturally less susceptible will survive, whilst those not, won't. This is called selection and is the driving force of insecticide...

  • Welcome to the course Ifeoma.

  • Many thanks for highlighting some of the challenges in Sudan, but also for your optimism that malaria can be eradicated.

  • As Silvie wrote in this step, existing standing variation in a population may be sufficient for selection to work on. That is, 'resistance' alleles may already be present in a mosquito population before they have ever been exposed to that insecticide. This may be the results of a random 'mutation' that at the time offered no benefit, but if it wasn't...

  • You raise some good questions. Does anyone have any experience of how the agricultural use of pesticides can be influenced to support vector control programmes?

  • Hello Oluwafemi, welcome to the course.

  • Greetings Claver, welcome to the course. I hope you find it useful.