Scientists have discovered a new weapon in the lab to lessen the spread of malaria by blocking up the sexual growth of potentially deadly malaria parasite.

When the mosquito bites an infected person, it gets the gametes, or sex cells, of malaria parasite at the same time that it feasts on the blood.

The gametes carry on the sexual cycle inside the mosquito, and are transmitted in its saliva the next time draws human blood with its needle like proboscis.

The gametes do not provoke malaria's awful symptoms, but settle in the liver where they eventually give rise to the parasite that does.

A team led by David Baker at the London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found an enzyme dangerous to the parasite’s sex cycle.

Baker said, “It acts as an inhibitor that stops the parasite from developing sexually.”

“If we could develop a drug for patients, it would enable us to block malaria transmission from individual to individual via the species of mosquitoes that carry the disease,” he added.

Baker said that the drug might also have a healing effect, though the study only concentrates on the spread of the disease.