A recent study suggests that the “Wolbachia method” could be used to significantly reduce the incidence of dengue fever.
Scientists from the World Mosquito Program (WMP) of Monash University in Australia and Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia tested this method in a 27-month trial in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.
It was found that using the Wolbachia method reduced the occurrence of dengue in the treated population by 77%.
This method involves introducing Wolbachia, a type of bacteria, into populations of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito species responsible for spreading dengue.
When the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes breed with their wild counterparts, the percentage of mosquitoes carrying the bacterium grows.
