Faced with a quadrupling of dengue fever cases, which result in agonizing pain, Brazil will release millions of bacteria-infected mosquitoes to slow the spread of the disease.
The Guardian reports that the mosquitoes will be released in six Brazilian cities in the next couple months as Brazil battles a severe outbreak of dengue fever, a viral disease transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito:
Factors such as hotter and wetter weather … are fueling an explosion of dengue in Brazil, which has recorded 1.6 million probable cases since January – the same number reported for all of last year – and 491 deaths, with a further 889 deaths under investigation, as of 14 March….the government is turning to…vaccines and the release of mosquitoes infected with bacteria that limit the transmission of dengue and other arboviruses to humans.
The Wolbachia method – named after a type of bacteria found in about 60% of insects but not naturally present in Aedes aegypti – has already been introduced in five Brazilian cities, providing protection to 3.2 million people. An 80m reais (£12.5m) expansion to six new municipalities will cover a further 1.7 million people.
Eggs and larvae of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes – which Brazilians have nicknamed “wolbitos” – will be provided by a Rio de Janeiro lab…which manages the Wolbachia method in Brazil in partnership with the NGO World Mosquito Program (WMP)…
“We started off in a tiny room, with just three small cages. And now we have these big rearing cages which can hold 32,000 mosquitoes,” said the lab’s supervisor Cátia Cabral during a recent tour of the 397 sq metre (4,273 sq ft) facility, which houses approximately 1.5 million adult mosquitoes and produces 10m eggs each week. There are plans to build a bigger mosquito-breeding lab in another state.
“We have a list of more than 50 municipalities that have got in touch requesting [‘wolbitos’],” he said, adding: “Our biggest bottleneck right now is the production of mosquitoes.”
The new mosquito-breeding lab, which should be up and running by 2025, will increase the current production capacity tenfold, to 100m eggs each week.
These bacteria-infected mosquitoes are also being bred to fight dengue fever in Honduras, in hopes of replacing mosquitoes that spread dengue fever, with a strain of mosquitoes that doesn’t spread the disease.
Dengue fever — a tropical disease so painful it is also known as “breakbone fever” — has spread into parts of Florida, Texas, and Arizona. In 2023, there were 11 cases of locally-acquired dengue fever in Florida. It could become much more widespread in the U.S. in the future.
So it is good to learn that scientists have come up with a vaccine that prevents dengue fever 80% of the time, at least in the short run:
Results of a phase 3 trial in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) show 80% protection for the single-dose tetravalent (four-strain) Butantan-Dengue Vaccine (Butantan D-V) among participants with no evidence of previous dengue exposure and 89% protection in those with a history of exposure.
The vaccine is the culmination of years of research from Brazil’s Butantan Institute, and the study included results from 16 Brazilian centers located in all five regions of the country. Each year at least 1 million Brazilians get infected with dengue…and the fatality rate is 0.9%.
Having more effective mosquito repellents would be helpful to protect against many diseases like dengue.
“Scientists in Israel have developed a new kind of ‘chemical camouflage’ that could more effectively keep pesky mosquito bites at bay,” reports Euro News. But it will take years before it is available in the U.S., thanks to America’s incredibly slow Food and Drug Administration.
The Food and Drug Administration keeps the most effective sunscreens off the U.S. market. It may do the same with this mosquito repellent, just as the Obama administration impeded anti-mosquito remedies during an outbreak of the disease Zika, which results in birth defects. As Washington University in St. Louis notes, “Due to Zika virus, more than 1,600 babies were born in Brazil with microcephaly, or abnormally small heads, from September 2015 through April 2016.” The Obama administration banned a life-saving pesticide, preventing it from being used to kill mosquitos carrying this awful disease, even though, as the New York Post noted at the time, Zika “infected nearly 300 pregnant women in the United States, putting their babies at risk for a devastating birth defect. . . . hundreds of babies are at risk of a horrifying brain defect called microcephaly. Infants who don’t perish outright need extensive care, which can cost up to $10 million.”
The FDA blocks new innovations that will protect your skin. Insiderreports that the “US has awful sunscreen compared to Asia and Europe. Strict, decades-old FDA rules are to blame.” “European and Asian sunscreens boast stronger and smoother formulas than sunscreens found in the US. That’s because the FDA is slower to approve new UV filters compared to other countries.”
Promoting and defending liberty, as defined by the nation’s founders, requires both facts and philosophical thought, transcending all elements of our culture, from partisan politics to social issues, the workings of government, and entertainment and off-duty interests. Liberty Unyielding is committed to bringing together voices that will fuel the flame of liberty, with a dialogue that is lively and informative.
Comments
For your convenience, you may leave commments below using Disqus. If Disqus is not appearing for you, please disable AdBlock to leave a comment.
