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Australian researchers have successfully conducted an experiment against mosquito invasion. Result obtained after a few months of tests: a fall of nearly 80% of the mosquito population targeted
Aedes aegypti . A charming little name for an insect that is a bit less … It is indeed one of the most infamous mosquito species: that responsible for the transmission of dengue virus, Zika or even of Chikungunya
Researchers have discovered it recently, the bite inflicted by this dipteran deeply upsets our immune system. The key certainly to explain the disconcerting ease with which the insect spreads these various pathogens.
While effective solutions of localized fight against the invasion begin to appear, epidemics in full recrudescence make urgent the development of a method radical action that would allow us to act on a large scale. A challenge that seems set to be met after a promising trial in Australia with funding from the American company Alphabet, a grouping of Google's various affiliates.
An experiment at the scale of one city
Conducted by researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, CSIRO – an Australian public scientific research organization – tests were conducted in Innisfail, a city in the state of Queensland, North East of the country. First step taken by scientists: to find a way to make non-viable eggs of mosquitoes.
They did it by infecting specimens of Aedes aegypti with a bacterium baptized Wolbachia a micro-organism already known to naturally affect the reproductive capacity of the common mosquito Culex pipiens . The effect was deliberately induced this time in more than three million males Aedes aegypti .
Diptera infected with a particular strain of Wolbachia were then gradually released between November and June 2017. As usual, the males came to fertilize the females present in the Australian city. They have laid millions of eggs that are rendered unviable by the bacterial infection inflicted on their parents.
Result: after three months of testing, the researchers measured a decrease of nearly 80% of the population of mosquitoes in the area where the infected males were released. A real hecatomb promising for the large-scale fight against these vectors of serious diseases. Scientists now hope to be able to confirm this success in other areas concerned by the threat.
The hope of a generalization of the method
" We learned a lot by participating to this first tropical test and we are excited to see this approach applied in other areas where Aedes aegypti is a threat to life and health " advances one of scientists involved in this mosquito control project, Kyran Stauton, Australian University James Cook
This is not the first time this approach has been tested. A similar test had already been conducted in California in the city of Fresno. In Brazil, a British company had also considered spreading sterile mosquitoes, but this time through genetic modification. So many trials that could one day stop the epidemics favored by mosquitoes. Aedes aegypti a small name today still far from charming, but, tomorrow perhaps, much less threatening …
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