Mosquito-borne infections become increasingly widespread as the monsoon season approaches. Malaria,
dengue fever, chikungunya, and Zika will all appear at the same time.
dengue fever is the most common of these.
dengue fever is caused by the 'Dengue' virus. It is spread by mosquitoes known as Aedes aegypti. Female Aedes
mosquitos bite a dengue-infected individual and spread the virus to another person's body. As a result,
dengue fever spreads from one person to the next. Every year, it affects 5 billion individuals around the world.
This problem has been solved permanently thanks to the bacterium Wolbachia, which was identified in 1924.
fruit flies, butterflies, moths, and parasites are among the 60 percent of insect species that contain it. This bacterium is already known to be safe for humans and animals, as well as non-harmful to the environment.
professor Scott O'Neill of the
university of Queensland in
australia was the first to discover the link between
dengue fever and the bacterium in 1991.
The potential of
mosquitos infected with this bacterium to propagate the
dengue virus is lost, according to studies conducted in
australia in 2009. This bacterium, however, is not seen in
dengue mosquitos normally. As a result, it was decided to cultivate it in laboratories and use current
technology to inject it into mosquito eggs. The most significant of these was a research conducted in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in 2014.
The study, dubbed the 'World Mosquito Program,' is being carried out with the public's complete involvement. Wolfachia was first infected into 50 million
mosquitos by the researchers. The city of Yogyakarta was divided into 24 zones, half of which received mosquito
eggs mixed in buckets of water at 50-meter intervals once every two weeks. Mosquitoes are discharged into the atmosphere after they grow in them.
The insects were then compared to mosquitoes from other non-released zones.
dengue fever was controlled in 77 percent of mosquito-free zones, and the number of
dengue cases admitted to hospitals was reduced by 86 percent. The results of this study were published in the New
england Journal of Medicine recently. The 'World Mosquito Project' has been expanded to 12 nations as a result of its success, including dengue-prone Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam, Fiji, and Sri Lanka.