In an endeavor to curb disease like Malaria and Dengue, scientists have been racing to genetically engineer mosquitoes to become resistant to the fevers that plague millions around the world, as an alternative to mass spraying of insecticides.
A less complicated approach of breeding mosquitoes to carry an insect parasite that causes earlier death is being studied.
After, a mosquito encounters dengue or malaria, it usually takes two weeks of incubation before the insect can spread that pathogen by biting someone.
It is also known that one type of fruit fly often is infected with a strain of bacterial parasite that cuts its lifespan in half. The scientists infected the mosquito species that spreads dengue-called Aedes aegypti-with that parasite breeding several generations in a controlled laboratory.
Mosquitoes born with the parasite lived only 21 days even in cozy lab conditions compared to 50 days for regular mosquitoes.
This new research has been reported by University of Queensland in the journal Science. The study funded by American billionaire Bill Gates.
It may provide an inexpensive approach to dengue control.
