In order to find out whether PKDL patients can act as a reservoir for VL – and therefore boost our capacity to eradicate the disease – my team and I have set up an insectarium to breed sterile sandflies.

Our insectarium – funded by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative and the Spanish Foundation for International Cooperation – is one of just seven in the world (with the majority located in developed countries).

Already, the insectarium has facilitated important progress.

We are also using the insectarium to test insecticide resistance and susceptibility in captive sandflies – research that will support the optimization of sandfly-control strategies throughout the Indian subcontinent.

With Bangladesh unable to pick up the slack, life-saving projects like ours will collapse; the long-term resources we have developed, from the insectarium to new diagnostic devices, will have to be abandoned; and the developing world’s poorest communities will suffer.

Insectarium in sentence

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