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Fig. 20 | Malaria Journal

Fig. 20

From: Systematic identification of plausible pathways to potential harm via problem formulation for investigational releases of a population suppression gene drive to control the human malaria vector Anopheles gambiae in West Africa

Fig. 20

Pathway 18 Human health: Potentially increased fitness, including insecticide resistance, of dsxFCRISPRh transgenics could increase disease transmission in humans. For this analysis plan, the measurement endpoints for relevant fitness parameters would be female lifespan, population density and sex ratio, and fecundity and insecticide resistance in females. Although technically a plausible pathway to potential harm identified by problem formulation, increased fitness of the transgenic should be detected during standard product development as it would most likely be considered a major product failure for most transgenic strains and cause the strain to be eliminated for further progress towards field release. Nonetheless, this potential harm is included here for the sake of completeness. The net effect of the population suppression gene drive could ultimately be to reduce this potential harm by reducing the density of mosquitoes including transgenic ones. The components of vectorial capacity (V) that would be affected in this pathway are shown in red in the equation

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