Wolbachia continues to struggle
The bacterium does not allow mosquitoes to spread dengue fever
Australian scientists report on the success of their project to combat dengue fever in Indonesia. In the test areas, the incidence decreased by 77%. To achieve this, scientists were helped by a bacterium that prevents the transmission of the dengue virus by mosquitoes.
The bacterium Wolbachia (Wolbachia pipientis) was discovered in 1926. It has long attracted the attention of scientists, as it lives in the organisms of many species of insects, and even skillfully regulates the activity of its host's genes, endowing it with various properties and even influencing whether this insect will become a male or female. In this case, its ability to make mosquitoes resistant to a number of viruses, including the dengue virus, is interesting.
Dengue fever is caused by a virus that is transmitted by mosquito bites Aedes aegypti and A.albopictus. It is distributed mainly in subtropical and tropical zones. Usually, the disease resembles the flu and lasts for several days, but in some cases, severe hemorrhagic fever develops after, when the patient experiences severe abdominal pain, indomitable vomiting, weakness, gums bleed, blood pressure drops, breathing and pulse quicken. In this case, the threat to the patient's life is great. Now the severe form of dengue fever has become one of the leading causes of hospitalization and death among children in Asian and Latin American countries.
It is difficult to estimate the number of cases, since in a weak form the symptoms of dengue are sometimes difficult to distinguish from other diseases. According to one study, 390 million people are infected with dengue every year, of which 96 million have clinical manifestations. Recently, the number of reported cases of the disease has been growing. In Indonesia, where trials are being conducted, the number of cases per year reaches 8 million, and several thousand people die from this disease every year.
Researchers from Monash University (Melbourne), together with Indonesian colleagues, infected mosquitoes with wolbachia for three years in 12 districts of the city of Yogyakarta in Central Java, which has one of the highest dengue incidence rates in the world. In the remaining 12 districts, conventional mosquito control agents, such as pesticides, were used. Since the beginning of the tests, there has been a significant decrease in the number of cases where the bacterium was used. Mosquitoes transmit the bacterium to their descendants, so that wolbachia persists in the mosquito population for many generations without requiring additional actions.
The researchers are confident that their chosen method will help to cope with dengue not only in Java. And such work is already underway. The World Mosquito Program is currently supporting trials in 11 cities around the world, including Rio de Janeiro. In Australia, where the project on the use of wolbachia was started ten years ago, the state of Queensland was declared free of dengue fever as a result.
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