Dengue Parasite Australian researchers used a bacterium to infect mosquitoes and reduce its life by half.
Life of mosquitoes transmit dengue could be reduced by half, according to researchers at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.
In an article published in the journal Science, the researchers said they used a bacteria called Wolbachia, one of the most common parasitic microbes to infect mosquitoes.
some time has spoken of the possibility of controlling mosquito populations with the parasite, but the latter study showed, at least in laboratory conditions, it is possible.
The mosquito vectors of disease are usually not susceptible to the bacteria, so the researchers adapted to achieve infection.
Dengue, transmitted by mosquitoes of the Aedes family, affects thousands of people annually in tropical countries. Only
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In the experiment, the life of mosquitoes infected with the bacteria was reduced to about 20 days instead of the 50 days that usually last.
This is important because, once a mosquito acquires the virus by biting an animal or a human who has the disease, there is an incubation period of one to three weeks, before it can transmit.
As a result, only more mosquitoes old represent a real danger to humans, with regard to dengue, and shortening the life of insects the chance of infection is reduced.
The bacteria can pass from infected females to their children. It also produces changes in infected males that only let them play with infected females.
The researchers said the use of Wolbachia could become a potentially cheap method of addressing the problem, particularly in urban areas.
But they warned that remains to be seen how well the modified bacteria can spread outside the laboratory and said the dengue virus could also be adapted for survive.
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