Scientists recruit mosquitoes to help fight dengue
Print Edition
SCIENTISTS from a university in south China’s Guangdong Province have come up with a new approach to fighting dengue fever.
Next year, they plan to release thousands of male mosquitoes in the Nansha Islands that have been injected with a symbiotic bacteria that inhibits the growth of eggs produced by their female partners, local paper New Express reported yesterday.
A trial will be carried out on Sand Island and if successful the scheme will be expanded to other areas, Xi Zhiyong, director of the Sun Yat-sen University-Michigan State University Joint Center of Vector Control for Tropical Diseases, was quoted as saying.
Dengue is a mosquito-borne and potentially fatal disease that affects millions of people in tropical and subtropical regions every year. Six fatalities and more than 43,000 cases have been reported in Guangdong so far this year.
As there are no vaccines to prevent infection, prevention of the disease depends mostly on controlling its spread.
Though scientists have been aware of the potential of the Wolbachia bacteria — which occurs naturally in mosquitoes and flies — for almost 80 years, it has only been in recent years that they have mastered ways to extract and store it, Xi said.
As well as providing a potentially long-term solution to dengue fever, the use of the Wolbachia bacteria is far more environmentally friendly than other methods used to fight the disease, he said.
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