Brazil: Transgenic mosquitoes adapt to nature

Brazilian scientists say the experiment to reduce the number of mosquitoes infected with dengue by releasing genetically modified insects into the wild is in good shape.

>>>Dengue virus causes blood thirst for mosquitoes

A year ago, more than 10 million genetically modified male mosquitoes were released in HCMC. Juazeiro, inhabited by 288,000 people. Test results are announced at a conference held last weekend in Rio. Aldo Malavasi, project coordinator, said the results were "very positive".

Transgenic male mosquitoes transmit poisonous genes to children so they cannot mature and reproduce.

'From the samples collected in the field, 85% of the mosquitoes' eggs carry the gene, meaning that the released male mosquitoes overwhelm the amount of natural mosquitoes, thereby reducing the number of Aedes mosquitoes and reducing the spread of the fever. blood, " said Malavasi.

Genetically modified mosquitoes have been tested in Malaysia and the Cayman Islands, but testing in Brazil is considered the largest test in nature ever.

"We develop technology that can effectively generate genetically modified insects, so we can reduce costs because we don't need to buy from the UK," Malavasi said.

This method has been approved by Brazil's Biosafety Technical Committee, and will be applied in some other cities of the country to eliminate dengue fever.

Before releasing genetically modified mosquitoes, Malavasi and the project team went to households, schools and churches in Juazeiro to get permission. They said that 90% of the people they asked had agreed.

Margareth Capurro, a biologist at São Paulo University, confirmed that people agreed to implement the project.

Mark Benedict of University of Perugia (Italy) said that experimental results are very promising.'Data show that this system is operating as expected. We don't see any big problems in how they do it, so I think it's very positive , " Benedict said.

Many environmental protection organizations, including the GeneWatch UK, have long expressed concern about the risk of transgenic mosquitoes exist and reproduce in nature, causing unintended consequences.

Malavasi says he is confident that genetically modified mosquitoes will not be able to produce children that can mature and reproduce.'But that doesn't mean we're not careful. We always perform control experiments'.

Malavasi said it would take some time before the number of Aedes mosquitoes could be reduced to the extent that it was possible to see the rate of transmission of dengue fever reduced, and the researchers had yet to survey the communities to fight Impact price for the disease has no vaccine and this special treatment.