GM trials slash dengue mosquito numbers

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes transmit dengue
 fever, which kills 22,000 children every year

[CURITIBA, BRAZIL] Genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes released into the environment, during a trial in the Cayman Islands, reduced the population of dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes by 80 per cent, according to a study.

The findings, published this month (10 September) in Nature Biotechnology, were followed by another successful trial of GM mosquitoes in Juazeiro region, Brazil, where a controlled release of GM A. aegypti reduced the mosquito population in the region by 90 per cent, according to a press release by the Brazilian science ministry issued last week (20 September).

The GM mosquitoes for the Cayman Islands trial were developed by the UK-based biotech company Oxitec. Around 3.3 million sterile male mosquitoes, which do not bite people and so do not spread dengue, were released in a site in Grand Cayman, over a period of 23 weeks in 2010.

-  scidev.net