Transforming mosquitoes from foes to friends in the battle against dengue fever; Everything explained
dengue fever in Honduras has meant teaching people to fear mosquitoes and avoid their bites. Now, Hondurans are being educated about a potentially more effective way to control the disease — and it goes against everything they’ve learned.
Which explains why a dozen people cheered last month as Tegucigalpa resident Hector Enriquez held a glass jar filled with mosquitoes above his head, and then freed the buzzing insects into the air.
Enriquez, a 52-year-old mason, had volunteered to help publicise a plan to suppress dengue by releasing millions of special mosquitoes in the Honduran capital.
The mosquitoes Enriquez unleashed in his El Manchen neighbourhood — an area rife with dengue — were bred by scientists to carry bacteria called Wolbachia that interrupt transmission of the disease. When these mosquitoes reproduce, they pass the bacteria to their offspring, reducing future outbreaks.
This emerging strategy for battling dengue was pioneered over the last decade by the nonprofit World Mosquito Program, and it is being tested in more than a dozen countries.
