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A company that creates genetically-modified mosquitoes will open a new factory in Brazil as it expands operations:
Small-scale studies in parts of Brazil, Panama and the Cayman Islands suggest engineered sterile mosquitoes can reduce wild insect populations by more than 90% when released into the wild. Intrexon said the facility in Piraciciba, São Paulo, will be able to protect 300,000 people.
Aedes aegypti mosquitoes carry three viruses - Dengue, Zika and Chikungunya.
The studies were carried out by the only company currently trialling GM insects, Oxitec, based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Oxitec, which was spun out from the University of Oxford, was bought by US company Intrexon for $160m (£106m) in August last year. Oxitec CEO Hadyn Parry said: "As the principal source for the fastest growing vector-borne infection in the world in Dengue fever, as well as the increasingly challenging Zika virus, controlling the Aedes aegypti population provides the best defence against these serious diseases for which there are no cures."
Also at The Guardian.
(Score: 2) by bart9h on Friday January 22 2016, @12:55PM
No need to introduce any species, there are a number of competing species around. As the Aedes aegypti population decline, the others will fill up their place.
Besides, if our wishes became true, and all the blood sucking mosquitoes of the world disappear, it would not be an ecosystem disaster, contrary to popular belief. There are other mosquitoes and other insects that can be used as food by those species that eat the blood sucking ones. It would certainly modify the food chain a bit, but the ecology will quickly stabilize again.