Scientists got closer to putting an end to the spread of mosquito-borne viruses.
They also took an experimental approach against dengue fever in a very advanced test.
In a random, double-blind trial, scientists took some mosquitoes infected with the virus-fighting Wolbachia bacteria inside of an Indonesian city.
Over the following 27 months, the participants from the areas with the bacteria-carrying insects registered 77% less dengue than those from the control group.
Cameron Simmons, a reputable infectious researcher from Monash University, said:
“This result demonstrates what an exciting breakthrough Wolbachia can be – a safe, durable and efficacious new product class for dengue control is just what the global community needs.”
He is also the director of the Oceania Hub from the World Mosquito Program, which conducted the experiment.
Dengue fever is provoked by the dengue virus, which gets spread around by female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.
It can be found in subtropical and tropical regions of the globe, and in recent decades, infections increased in numbers. An estimate suggests that there are between 100 and 400 million infections yearly.
The WHO (World Health Organization) labels dengue as the most critical mosquito-borne virus in the world.
It took an intense effort to set up an adequate trial parameters when interacting with real-world population. The newest approach is one of the first randomized experiments of the kind.
Also, it is the first study to measure virologically confirmed dengue, making it the most advanced research of its kind to date.
In 2017, the team randomly released Wolbachia-infected mosquitos in some so-called intervention clusters.
The results showed that 2.3% of the members of the intervention clusters where Wolbachia-bearing mosquitoes had been deployed had clinically diagnosed dengue fever, in contrast to 9.4% of people in the control clusters.
