Modified mosquitoes wipe out whole city’s dengue for the first time

 This is the first example in which the strategy categorically worked as advertised.  Thus we can at least count on this approach as a suppression method.  After all, there is no end of swamps just down the road everywhere.

We have been tracking this for a long time.  Chemistry gave us DDT and that only suppressed the mosquitoes as well. I do think that both approaches can be equally effective.  Thus since DDT is banned, we need to turn this method into a systemic protocol that is applied every year to protect areas of habitation.

All good.

Modified mosquitoes wipe out whole city’s dengue for the first time

2 August 2018

Local residents helped release the mosquitoes

World Mosquito Program

By Alice Klein

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2175827-modified-mosquitoes-wipe-out-whole-citys-dengue-for-the-first

Dengue virus has effectively been wiped out in Townsville, Australia, following the release of anti-dengue mosquitoes in 2014.

The Queensland city has recorded zero cases of locally-transmitted dengue in the four years since the modified mosquitoes were released, compared to 54 cases in the previous four years.

The trial represents the first successful use of modified mosquitoes to eliminate a mosquito-borne virus across a whole city.

Scott O’Neill at Monash University and his colleagues infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with naturally-occurring Wolbachia bacteria, which hamper the mosquitoes from