According to the World malaria report 2018 from the World Health Organization, there were 219 million cases of malaria worldwide with 435,000 deaths in 2017. The majority of these deaths were children living in Africa.

One of the most difficult elements of mosquito control is ensuring that the sterility stays within these few species while also having the least impact on the ecosystem. Identifying the genes that are responsible for male sterility can help researchers like Sharakhov and Liang ensure that sterility stays within a select number of species.