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Medicine

'Miraculous' Mosquito Hack Cuts Dengue By 77% (bbc.com) 67

Posted by BeauHD from the dang-impressive dept.
Dengue fever cases have been cut by 77% in a "groundbreaking" trial that manipulates the mosquitoes that spread it, say scientists. The BBC reports: They used mosquitoes infected with "miraculous" bacteria that reduce the insect's ability to spread dengue. The trial took place in Yogyakarta city, Indonesia, and is being expanded in the hope of eradicating the virus. The World Mosquito Programme team says it could be a solution to a virus that has gone around the world. The trial used mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria. One of the researchers, Dr Katie Anders, describes them as "naturally miraculous." Wolbachia doesn't harm the mosquito, but it camps out in the same parts of its body that the dengue virus needs to get into. The bacteria compete for resources and make it much harder for dengue virus to replicate, so the mosquito is less likely to cause an infection when it bites again.

The trial used five million mosquito eggs infected with Wolbachia. Eggs were placed in buckets of water in the city every two weeks and the process of building up an infected population of mosquitoes took nine months. Yogyakarta was split into 24 zones and the mosquitoes were released only in half of them. The results, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed a 77% reduction in cases and an 86% reduction in people needing hospital care when the insects were released.
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'Miraculous' Mosquito Hack Cuts Dengue By 77% More

'Miraculous' Mosquito Hack Cuts Dengue By 77%

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  • Not GMO? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bookwormT3 ( 8067412 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @03:53AM (#61472634)

    That's a pretty great result for not needing a GMO. Because the universe tends to find a way to have unintended consequences, and a brand new gene sequence that someone cooks up in a lab 10 years from now that mutates into something devastating comes to mind as an obvious future cautionary tale.

    At least spreading something already found in nature is likely to surprise us with a manageable disaster, you know, like rabbits introduced to Australia... err ok maybe 'manageable' is a spectrum, and a bit nuanced.

    • Re:Not GMO? (Score:5, Informative)

      by vadim_t ( 324782 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @04:33AM (#61472716) Homepage

      You're on the verge of discovering that natural vs human made isn't really important. What's important is that whatever is done is done well.

      • You're on the verge of discovering that natural vs human made isn't really important. What's important is that whatever is done is done well.

        Nature is harsh and unforgiving. It gave us dengue fever in the first place. The bar is pretty low for human improvement. Just don't cause an outcome worse than dengue is currently.

      • You're on the verge of discovering that natural vs human made isn't really important. What's important is that whatever is done is done well.

        We must always remember, Arsenic is a natural substance.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skids ( 119237 )

          Or "would you rather eat a randomly chosen mushroom from the forest floor, or a randomly chosen pill from the OTC aisle at the grocery store?"

          • Or "would you rather eat a randomly chosen mushroom from the forest floor, or a randomly chosen pill from the OTC aisle at the grocery store?"

            Well, not either - but if I was held down and forced, the random pill, and just hope it isn't a laxative. 8^)

    • Re:Not GMO? (Score:5, Funny)

      by The Evil Atheist ( 2484676 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @04:34AM (#61472720)
      If the mosquitos get out of hand, we'll just release a bunch of frogs and other insect eating animals. Then when they start getting out of control, we'll send wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. When the snakes start getting out of control, we'll release gorillas that thrive on snake meat. Then when winter comes, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

    • a brand new gene sequence that someone cooks up in a lab 10 years from now that mutates into something devastating comes to mind as an obvious future cautionary tale.

      Exactly how many times has that happened? Are you mistaking popular entertainment for reality?

      • a brand new gene sequence that someone cooks up in a lab 10 years from now that mutates into something devastating comes to mind as an obvious future cautionary tale.

        Exactly how many times has that happened? Are you mistaking popular entertainment for reality?

        Even the conspiracy covid "bioweapon cooked up in a Chinese lab" was no match for mother nature. She's already made at least 4 better versions [who.int] so far.

        • Real Estate Conventions Nothing like releasing a couple of thousand mozzies indoors at busy conventions and time share pitches. Bloodsuckers for bloodsuckers. Make friends with those lab techs.

      • a brand new gene sequence that someone cooks up in a lab 10 years from now that mutates into something devastating comes to mind as an obvious future cautionary tale.

        Exactly how many times has that happened? Are you mistaking popular entertainment for reality?

        That's how the Ancient Aliens gave us Bigfoot. The Discovery channel told me so. They were using GM to make ultra strong workers to build the pyramids and control the nuclear reactors in their cores. Then it all got out of hand when Sasquatch discovered Beef Jerky.

        • "Then it all got out of hand when Sasquatch discovered Beef Jerky"

          Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tomhath ( 637240 )
      They could've gotten to the result much faster if they had release sterile male mosquitoes at the same time they were releasing the infected eggs.

      • They could've gotten to the result much faster if they had release sterile male mosquitoes at the same time they were releasing the infected eggs.

        The point wasn't to reduce the mosquito population though. But to spread the infection and reduce the incidence of Dengue.

        Wolbachia are also spectacularly manipulative and can alter the fertility of their hosts to ensure they are passed on to the next generation of mosquitoes.

        It means once Wolbachia has been established, it should stick around for a long time and continue to protect against dengue infection.

        Messing with the number of mosquitoes might have interfered with the analysis of the results too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tg123 ( 1409503 )

        They could've gotten to the result much faster if they had release sterile male mosquitoes at the same time they were releasing the infected eggs.

        With Wolbachia bacteria you want wild male mosquitoes to mate with infected females so that any eggs created by an infected female will carry the bacteria.
        Wolbachia also only allows reproduction through infected female mosquito's this means that if a wild female mates with an infected male she will lay eggs that are infertile.

    • The lab in Wuhan seems to have perhaps made a pretty significant error

  • and become sx as worse as it is now.
    Just wait for it. Nature can't be fooled this easily with human 'hacks'.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LKM ( 227954 )
      That's the case with every countermeasure we take, though. Doesn't mean we can't stay a few steps ahead of nature if we want to. The problem is usually not ability, but desire.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Viruses don't actually try to be harmful to their hosts. They'd really prefer that their host not even notice that they were around. It's just that they need resources to reproduce, and the host wants to use those resources in a different way.

    • Seems like the goal is to eradicate it before it can find a viable mutation. It worked with smallpox after all.
  • The World Mosquito Program headed by Scott O'Neill has done something unbelievable that not that long ago was considered impossible.
    Stopping the transmission of Dengue by Mosquitoes using the bacteria Wolbachia.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
  • Let's face it, people would need a lot of convincing to accept having a few million mosquitos released in their backyard. Did it take a massive marketing campaign, or are there so many mosquitos that nobody noticed? Or, is the government just sufficiently authoritarian to have done it without any public feedback?
    • 5 million mosquitos is not a lot. 750 million male mosquitos were released in Florida. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/19... [cnn.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tg123 ( 1409503 )

        5 million mosquitos is not a lot...

        Thats one of the great things about Wolbachia bacteria once you have a large enough population of Wolbachia infected mosquito's
        these will infect the rest of the wild population in the local area. Mosquito's that are infected with Wolbachia don't transmit dengue.

    • Re:Must have been hard to get approved. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Admiral Krunch ( 6177530 ) on Thursday June 10, 2021 @09:05AM (#61473112)
      The study [nejm.org]

      Community approval for wMel releases was obtained from the leaders of 37 urban villages after a campaign of community engagement and mass communication. Written informed consent for participation in the clinical component of the trial was obtained from all the participants or from a guardian if the participant was a minor. In addition, participants 13 to 17 years of age gave written informed assent.

  • would figure out how to just remove them from the planet. Rains were heavy this spring in central TX and the bloodsuckers are out in force. Most areas remind me of the old Off commercial in the 70's where the actor sticks his arm in a box full of mosquitoes.

    • You don't want to get rid of mosquitos. They're very, very important to the local ecology.

      Fun fact, most mosquitos, including all male mosquitos, don't even bite humans. Many are sap-suckers and pollinators.

  • They have some great past success in pitting animal against animal. All the success stories of rabbits, dingos, ghan camels ... Deliberately introducing bacteria into a new habitat and encouraging the spread is right up their alley.
  • Unpopular Opinion: So we cure or prevent dengue and later maybe malaria. And all those millions in ignorance and poverty who die yearly don't die. And they have more kids by the boatload because in their ignorance (remember ignorance means not knowing, not 'not intelligent') they do know that having tons of kids is the best way to ensure they don't starve in old age. And so on. Given that global warming is going to screw with our ability to feed ourselves already, we will need to be ready for more starvatio

  • It's all fine and dandy until this Wolbachia virus mutates, creates dengue zombies, and reduces civilization to a post apocalypse civilization that can only be saved by Wil Smith.

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