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An impressive Australian trial that released millions of sterilized male mosquitoes in Queensland resulted in a fall of over 80% in the population of this insect that spreads the disease. The international collaboration involved scientists from the Australian University James Cook (JCU) and CSIRO, working with a new mosquito breeding technology developed by Verily, an independent subsidiary of the parent company of Google Alphabet.
Male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with a natural bacterium called Wolbachia were released in several test areas across the Cbadowary coast in northern Queensland. Infected mosquitoes still mate naturally with females, but subsequent eggs do not hatch, allowing rapid and significant declines in the local mosquito population.
The technique has been widely used for more than half a century and has proved a safe and effective way of managing insect populations, but deploying it on a larger scale has always been a challenge. The great technological innovation comes from Verily's automated mbad rearing system that efficiently and robotically raises large volumes of mosquitoes and separates the bades. It is essential that only male mosquitoes are released in the neighborhoods because males do not bite, so when they are released by the millions, they have no noticeable impact on human populations.
The Debug Fresno project began in 2017 with the release of nearly 20 million male mosquitoes in two neighborhoods in Fresno County, California. The first results of the Debug Fresno project have reduced the number of female mosquitoes Aedes aegypti by 68% compared to other districts
This Australian test of the technique showed similar results, if not slightly best. "We came to Innisfail with CSIRO and JCU to see how this approach worked in a tropical environment where these mosquitoes thrive, and to learn what it was like to operate our technology with research collaborators like us working together to find new ways to tackle these dangerous mosquitoes, "says Nigel Snoad of Verily
.Another Australian project, called World Mosquito Program, has been operating since 2011 using a similar Wolbachia infection technique This project releases smaller volumes of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, both male and female, into the environment in an effort to slowly reduce the ability of female mosquitoes to transmit viruses, while the Verily Debug project is more oriented towards the rapid suppression of local mosquito populations in shorter periods
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