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A female Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that spreads yellow fever. The Genetic Control of Mosquitoes Unit perfected “mass production techniques” and developed a way to distribute mosquitoes with a gadget on a rickshaw.

Biological warfare experiment in India and the curious case of yellow fever mosquitoes

Did mosquito research in India in the 1970s act as a cover for certain U.S. research projects having a bearing on biological warfare?

P.K. Rajagopalan

The greater horseshoe bat. The Ebola virus, closely related to the coronovirus, has been associated with these bats.

What ails biomedical research

Research in health sciences in India is no more oriented towards problem-solving based on years of field work, one of the reasons why many old and new

P.K. Rajagopalan

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa and Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan at the inauguration of 107th Indian Science Congress in Bengaluru on January 3.

Oh to be a scientist!

Scientific conferences have become public relations exercises instead of functioning as spaces where scientific ideas are exchanged and new ideas enco

P.K. Rajagopalan

Health officials inspect bats to be confiscated and culled in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak at a live animal market in Solo, Indonesia, on March 14.

Bat connection

Basic research into the epidemiology of coronavirus needs to be taken up on a war footing.

P.K. Rajagopalan

Vaccine being administered to prevent Kyasanur forest disease in Shivamogga district on December 31, 2018.

Viral challenge

With Kyasanur forest disease reappearing in new territories, an intensive scientific study is needed to know how the virus enters the forest ecosystem

P.K. Rajagopalan

A technician counts mosquito larvae in the laboratory at the Oxitec Ltd. facility in Campinas, Brazil, on Tuesday, March 1, 2016. Shares of billionaire Randal Kirk's biotech firm, Intrexon Corp., the parent company of Oxitec, have surged as investors seem to think their genetically modified mosquitoes will be more effective in fighting the spread of the Zika virus than an alternative technology offered by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency. Photographer: Paulo Fridman/Bloomberg

Mosquito in the ointment

A U.K.-based biotechnology company is planning a large-scale trial release of modified A. aegypti mosquitoes in Maharashtra though the method has not

P.K. RAJAGOPALAN

Tracking arboviruses

Bats and other small mammals that chronically harbour viruses act as disease reservoirs, though the exact pathways through which these are transmitted

P.K. RAJAGOPALAN

In this Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 photo, Gerald Mukisa, a caretaker at the forest who also acts as a tour guide, poses in the Zika Forest, near Entebbe about 25 kilometers east of the Uganda capital Kampala. An Associated Press team this week visited the Zika Forest, which has 35-meter (38-yard) -tall trees and is, now fittingly, a research site for scientists with the Uganda Virus Research Institute. There’s also a derelict observation tower. Birdwatchers come and go, and musicians have come here to shoot videos for their songs. Real estate developers threaten encroachment on the forest reserve. But until the breakout of Zika in the Western Hemisphere, not much attention was paid to the virus in the forest, according to Ugandan officials. (AP Photo/Stephen Wandera)

Zika control, the Ugandan way

Uganda’s success in containing the Zika outbreak is the product of a long history of cutting-edge infectious disease research that resulted in the dis

P.K. RAJAGOPALAN

MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA, 17/02/2016: The Municipal Corporation employee is seen disbursing smoke to repel mosquitoes from a slum near Agripada in Mumbai on February 17, 2016. The city of Mumbai has a history of malaria outbreak few years ago and poses a threat from mosquito bourn diseases. A large number of people living in the slum are in vulnerable situation to protect them from such occurrence.
Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury

The six-legged enemy

Malaria control in India is seriously affected by the fact that the knowledge once gained through painstaking research and fieldwork by entomologists

P.K. RAJAGOPALAN

A CHILD SUFFERING from Japanese encephalitis in the Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. A July 2006 photograph.-VARUN JAISWAL/AFP

Combating a killer

There are no effective vaccines against Japanese encephalitis, but its spread can be controlled in India through vector management.

DR P.K. RAJAGOPALAN