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Now9:17 a.mRelease millions of mosquitoes modified to fight dengue fever
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This may sound like a premise for a horror movie, or a biblical plague, but the World Mosquito Program plans to release five billion mosquitoes into Brazil. And hope will help save lives.
Billions of bugs will be released with a bacteria called Wolbachia, all in an effort to slow the spread of dengue fever in the country.
“[Once] you see a reduction in disease transmission, it’s not like a horror movie anymore,” said Scott O’Neill, director of the World Mosquito Program. Now host Matt Galloway.
A mosquito factory is under construction for the project. It will open in 2024 and produce five billion mosquitoes per year to be released in Brazil, according to the scientific journal Nature.
The World Health Organization says there is 2.8 million cases of dengue have been reported in the Americas in 2022. Of these countries, Brazil reported the second highest incidence, with 1,104.5 cases per 100,000 people.
Dengue fever is a viral infection, most often transmitted to humans through infected mosquitoes. Mild cases can cause high fever and flu-like symptoms. More severe cases can lead to bleeding, low blood pressure and death.
“The dengue situation in Brazil is getting worse every year,” said Luciano Moreira, a scientist at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, a public health research institute in Rio de Janeiro.
“More than 1,000 people died [in 2022] Dengue fever is caused by spreading mosquitoes around. Walk everywhere.”
How it works
Mosquitoes with Wolbachia actually prevent the insects from transmitting viruses such as dengue, as well as chikungunya, Zika virus, and yellow fever, according to O’Neill.
They can complete the difficult task of injecting tiny mosquito eggs with bacteria.
“We actually bred these mosquitoes that harbored the bacteria, Wolbachia, and then released them into the community where the Wolbachia bacteria spread to the wild mosquito population,” said O’Neill, a microbiologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
“Then we saw dengue cases drop dramatically.”
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Her organization has done a similar project in Australia, where she says local dengue transmission has been eliminated. Trials in Indonesia have produced similar results.
“In that trial, we measured a reduction in confirmed dengue by about 77 percent and a reduction in hospitalizations due to dengue by 86 percent,” O’Neill said.
“That’s the big effect we’re seeing.”
‘desperate people’
Brazil will be the most ambitious project of the World Mosquito Program. The goal is to release five billion mosquitoes per year, across the country, which is a level of production that the organization has not achieved before.
They say they can usually produce about 10 million mosquitoes per week. But to produce five billion a year, it takes 100 million mosquitoes a week.
“You need more automation, you need more precise conditions to grow in size. So, yes, this will be an automated facility that will be built in Brazil,” O’Neill said.
But rolling out will also be a challenge. They have two methods of deployment. They put the eggs into a small bucket of water and then the mosquitoes grow on their own. Alternatively, they can release adult mosquito tubes, releasing 150 bugs for every 100 meters in the city square.
But he says most people won’t know the difference.
“Often when we release mosquitoes, the numbers that are released, people most often don’t notice a change from the normal biting activity they experience every day,” O’Neill said.
The group must release mosquitoes in poor communities, and places that are not always safe because they are controlled by gangs. But overall, O’Neill is confident he will make a difference in the country.
“This approach seems to have a huge impact,” O’Neill said.
“This is a difficult prospect for people to understand. But when people live in areas of transmission and fear the disease and its impact on families, people are desperate and hungry for new approaches.”
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