Fiocruz expands experiment with lab-modified dengue mosquitoes

Following a year testing lab-modified dengue fever mosquitoes, the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) has expanded the project coverage area in Rio de Janeiro to the neighborhood Jurujuba in Niterói, metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro. Thousands of Aedes aegypti eggs infected with Wolbachia, a bacterium found in the environment that is able to prevent the mosquito from transmitting the disease, have been released in the city since August.

The experience is part of a project called “Eliminate Dengue”, which began about a year ago in a neighborhood in north Rio, home to about 3,000 people. About 10,000 mosquitoes modified with the bacteria were released there over four months.

Luciano Moreira, Fiocruz researcher and project coordinator for Brazil, explained that in Jurujuba, Wolbachia-infected mosquito eggs were released in small buckets. The experiment was carried out at 80 households that agreed to cooperate with the initiative.

“It's a simpler, cheaper way to release the infected mosquitoes, and it could be used in other areas in the future,” he said, noting that the results are promising. About half of the mosquito population in Jurujuba is now infected with the bacteria. “We're hoping to make it 100%, [since] the females the Wolbachia on to their offspring,” Moreira said.

He mentioned that in Australia, where the experiment began in 2009, researches succeeded in infecting 100% of the dengue mosquitoes in the tested areas. In Rio de Janeiro, 20 weeks after the infected mosquitoes were released, the bacteria were found in 65% of the [Aedes aegypti] population. Once 100% of the population has been infected, the researchers will be ready to move on to the next step: checking if the number of dengue cases has gone down.

Translated by Mayra Borges

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