Puducherry scientists develop mosquitoes to control dengue spread

These will replace the dengue-carrying mosquitoes, which in turn will inhibit the spread of dengue.

Dengue control process

In India, dengue is caused by Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes.

The ICMR-VCRC scientists have used the Wolbachia strategy to prevent the transmission of dengue and other arboviral infection.

A scientist said that Wolbachia is an intracellular bacterium that infects small invertebrates.

The scientists added that Wolbachia will transmit an endosymbiont into female mosquitoes in the wild.

They have developed Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia strains wMel and wAlbB, the resulting mosquitoes being called Ae Aegypti (Pud).

“An endosymbiont thrives in a give-and-take relationship. The Wolbachia will get a home in the mosquitoes’ cells, and in response control the Aedes aegypti,” ICMR-VCRC Director Dr Ashwani Kumar told South First.

“The female mosquitoes containing Wolbachia will mate with the males and produce larvae that are free from the dengue virus,” he explained.

The worries

Kumar, along with nine scientists, studied and experimented over four years to replace vector-carrying mosquitoes with the Wolbachia-strain ones.

However, scientists are concerned because the Aegypti mosquitoes are vulnerable to high temperatures, and the temperature exceeds 40°C during the summer months in most regions of India.

The ICMR-VCRC has conducted a study to check if the wMel and wAlbB Wolbachia strains in the Ae Aegypti (Pud) lines can tolerate higher temperatures under laboratory and simulated conditions.

In the study, the Wolbachia density decrease was observed at high temperatures under laboratory as well as field conditions.

The thermal death point for Wolbachia-infected and -uninfected Ae Aegypti (Pud) larvae are more than 36°C under both laboratory and simulated field conditions.