To address the malaria crisis and overcome the growing ineffectiveness of current chemical insecticides, a major scientific research initiative was launched on Wednesday, August 26, 2026, in Abidjan. Named Nectar, this project is dedicated to discovering new active compounds effective against resistant mosquitoes.

A medical innovation project in the fight against mosquitoes is being launched in Côte d’Ivoire, co-led by the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d’Ivoire (CSRS) in partnership with a prestigious international consortium, including Purdue University (USA), the company Enveda (USA), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Nangui Abrogoua University in Abidjan.

Current insecticide-treated bed nets are reaching their limits. “The chemical compounds used so far are no longer effective because mosquitoes have developed resistance,” explained Professor Benjamin Koudou, coordinator and director of the Nectar Project.

According to Professor Benjamin Koudou, director of the Research Group on Disease Vectors and Clinical Studies, the solution now lies in nature: exploring the wealth of local medicinal plants to isolate new insecticidal molecules.

Drawing on African herbal medicine to overcome resistance

Professor Jérémie Zoueu, director general of the CSRS, highlighted the dual benefits of this approach: addressing a major public health challenge while adopting a strictly ecological approach that respects local communities and is free of the side effects associated with traditional chemical products.

Of the fifteen or so plants targeted by local research, five are already set to enter the field collection phase imminently. The goal of this 22-month project is to obtain, within one to fifteen months, plant extracts that are highly effective against malaria-carrying mosquitoes that are currently resistant to insecticides.

The overall objective of the project is to harness the wealth of African herbal medicine and local plants to discover new active ingredients and develop innovative solutions for vector control against mosquitoes, particularly for malaria, dengue, yellow fever, and all other vector-borne diseases.

This project harnesses plants from the African pharmacopoeia in the fight against disease vectors through the identification, ethical harvesting, and local processing of plant biomass, all backed by rigorous traceability.

The goal is ambitious: to isolate two or three highly effective plants within the first 12 to 15 months, in order to develop, in collaboration with U.S. companies, finished products for indoor residual spraying or the impregnation of next-generation mosquito nets.

Science Diplomacy and Compliance with the Nagoya Protocol

This project makes Côte d’Ivoire the first and only African country to join this strategic consortium. Deborah Attolini, Business Manager at the Swiss Embassy in Côte d’Ivoire, who was present at the launch, welcomed this development: “For us, the CSRS is the cornerstone of bilateral relations between Côte d’Ivoire and Switzerland. This is science diplomacy.”

The Nectar project also stands out for its exemplary legal framework. As it directly involves the genetic and biological resources of Côte d’Ivoire’s natural heritage, its implementation is strictly governed by the Nagoya Protocol (ratified by Côte d’Ivoire in 2013).

Marie Véronique Koffi, permanent secretary of the National Commission for Sustainable Development at the Ministry of the Environment, emphasized the need for prior consent from local communities and institutions. The Ivorian Intellectual Property Office (OIPI) will also support the process to ensure the traceability and ethical protection of these discoveries.

From a technical standpoint, the harvested plant biomass will undergo local processing before being subjected to advanced molecular extraction and state-of-the-art metabolomic profiling (via LC/MS-MS). Phenotypic bioassays will then be conducted directly on local strains of multi-resistant mosquitoes to scientifically validate the insecticidal efficacy of these new African active ingredients.

AP/Sf/APA