Bacteria-Laced Mosquitoes Limit Spread of Dengue

Cases of dengue were greatly reduced in areas of a city where Wolbachia-infected mosquitos were released, according to preliminary data from a field study.

Written byAmanda Heidt

| 4 min read

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mosquito, dengue, vector, transmission, Aedes aegypti, Wolbachia, bacteria, virus, Zika, yellow fever, chikungunya

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ABOVE: A researcher hold up a plate of mosquitoes.
MONASH UNIVERSITY

Mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, and Zika sicken nearly 700 million people each year, and the preliminary results of a new study hint at a possible way of drastically minimizing the spread of such illnesses.

Researchers have infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes—the species responsible for passing on many diseases—with bacteria called Wolbachia with the intent of reducing the insects’ ability to pass on dengue to people. When these modified mosquitoes were released in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, the rates of dengue dropped by 77 percent over two years, making it four times less likely that a person would contract the disease by the end of the study than in years past.

“It is a huge breakthrough,” Nicholas Jewell, a biostatistician at the University of California, Berkeley, who designed the study, said in an August 26 press release announcing the ...

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Meet the Author

Amanda Heidt
Amanda first began dabbling in scicom as a master’s student studying marine science at Moss Landing Marine Labs, where she edited the student blog and interned at a local NPR station. She enjoyed that process of demystifying science so much that after receiving her degree in 2019, she went straight into a second master’s program in science communication at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Formerly an intern at The Scientist, Amanda joined the team as a staff reporter and editor in 2021 and oversaw the publication’s internship program, assigned and edited the Foundations, Scientist to Watch, and Short Lit columns, and contributed original reporting across the publication. Amanda’s stories often focus on issues of equity and representation in academia, and she brings this same commitment to DEI to the Science Writers Association of the Rocky Mountains and to the board of the National Association of Science Writers, which she has served on since 2022. She is currently based in the outdoor playground that is Moab, Utah. Read more of her work at www.amandaheidt.com.
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