A unique form of pest control was tried in Juazeiro, a city in north east Brazil, to combat dengue fever. Popularly known as the “bone breaker” it causes vomiting, severe pain in the joints and abdomen and circulatory system failure. The problem is, this fever which is primarily spread through the mosquito species Aedes aegypti, is nearly impossible to treat. So the only way to fight it; is precaution, i.e. reducing the number of mosquitoes that carry it.

Keeping this fact in mind a British biotech company Oxitec has engineered a male mosquito that looks just like the usual male mosquito to the female ones in the wild. But when these mosquitoes mate, they pass onto their offspring a mutation that kills them before they are even ready to reproduce or spread the disease. Since last few years, dengue has been on the rise in Brazil with a horrific figure of 16 million new cases every year. The problem doesn’t end here. Many of the disease carrying mosquitoes have become resistant to pesticides leaving a slim window to combat the disease. So over a one year period, researchers from Oxitec released the genetically modified males in the north east area of Brazil and monitored the resulting eggs. The study found a terrific drop of 95 percent in the number of disease- carrying mosquitoes as compared to a control group in a neighbourhood.

The success of this experiment has encouraged the researchers to scale up their efforts to completely eradicate dengue and the insects carrying it.

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Author:Technology Blog