A tech company in the U.S is taking an unusual approach to fighting the Zika virus. The company plans to release 20 million male mosquitoes that are injected with a bacteria that prevents female mosquitoes from producing healthy eggs. The project has raised questions about its effectiveness and whether it would work on Canadian soil where diseases like West Nile are on the rise.
It is said to be the biggest release of mosquitoes in the U.S. to date. As part of Project Debug, 20 million male Aedes Aegpyti mosquitoes will be released in California.
Jodi Holeman from Project Debug says, “Even though they are not actively and currently transmitting disease in California, it is our job to stay on top of things and keep them from spreading.”
The mosquitoes will be injected with the bacteria, Wolbachia. While harmless to humans, the process creates non-hatching eggs when they mate with wild females.
Male mosquitoes only live for about a week, while females can live for about a month. According to Brock University Entomologist Dr. Fiona Hunter, “they’re going to have to keep releasing more and more of these males because they just don’t have a long lifespan.” She also added that Project Debug wouldn’t work in Canada.
Ontario does not have a breeding population of these mosquitoes and if they do get here, they would die over winter. She also says more research needs to be done on what happens when other animals eat infected mosquitoes. This does open up a slight moral dilemma because none of the possibilities have been explored.
Aedes Aegypti is responsible for most of the human cases of Zika in the Caribbean, South America and the U.S. As of June, there have been over 500 travel-related cases of Zika virus reported in Canada.
Studies show that injecting mosquitoes with Wolbachia that are known to carry West Nile would actually make them more likely to be infected and transmit the disease.
While no mosquitoes north of the border have tested positive for Zika, Dr. Fiona and her researchers are out trapping regularly. And while Zika may not be here, she says West Nile is ramping up in Southern Ontario.
