Why I Spend My Days Raising Mosquitoes

By Joannitta Joannides, Laboratory Manager, Vestergaard–Noguchi Vector Labs Every morning, I walk into a room full of mosquitoes. While most people spend their lives trying to avoid them, I spend my days raising, monitoring and studying them. It may sound unusual, but understanding mosquitoes helps to answer important questions about how well malaria prevention tools are performing. In 2024 alone, 282 million people were infected with malaria, and 610,000 died. 94% of these cases and 95% of deaths occurred in Africa, with three-quarters of all deaths among children under five. These numbers highlight why continued malaria prevention efforts matter. But we also know what works. The Malaria Atlas Project has estimated that malaria control efforts have helped prevent more than 1.22 billion cases and 3.5 million deaths across Africa since 2000.