FREESTOCKPHOTOS.BIZ, CDC/PROF FRANK HADLEY COLLINSA genetically modified (GM) mosquito—designed to infiltrate a wild population and produce offspring that die before reproductive age—has devastated local mosquito numbers in a field trial in Brazil. Researchers reported in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases this month (July 2) that one year after deployment of the mutant Aedes aegypti, mosquito numbers were reduced 80 percent to 95 percent.
“The fact that the number of Aedes aegypti adults were reduced by 95% in the treatment area confirms that the Oxitec mosquito does what it is supposed to and that is to get rid of mosquitoes,” study coauthor Andrew McKemey, head of field operations at Oxitec, which developed the GM mosquito, said in a press release.
Aedes aegypti can carry pathogens that cause diseases, including dengue and chikungunya. Although McKemey’s study did not determine whether disease burden among humans would drop with the introduction of GM mosquitoes, he said in the statement that “according to published mathematical models reviewed and recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) working group on dengue, it would . . . reduce the number of biting mosquitoes below the disease ...
