LONDON - British scientific team, said genetically modified mosquitoes can effectively cope with dengue fever. Not only dengue fever, but other insects that cause disease.
As reported by the BBC on Monday (31.10.2011), modified male mosquitoes, so that their offspring die before reproducing.
In the Cayman Islands are affected by dengue fever, the researchers found successfully engineered mosquitoes mated with wild females. Dengue fever is caused by a virus that is transmitted through the bite of Aedes aegypti.
In the journal Nature Biotechnology, they said the previous marriage has not been proven in the wild, and can reduce the number of disease-carrying mosquitoes.
World Health Organization (WHO), estimates there are 50 million cases each year. Until now there is no vaccine that can be overcome.
Now the latest study in 2009, a group of scientists from Imperal College London and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, released the results of research from the Cayman Islands.
In the study, collected some proportion of eggs which then generates gene. The results of such genes is the result of biotech mosquito marriage.
Engineered mosquitoes consisting of 16 percent, and the father of larvae 10 percent. These results, it is not significantly worse.
WHO dengue expert, Dr. Raman Velayudhan said, "This is the first study, which suggests the mosquito population can be suppressed in this way."
Recognizing that genetic engineering is a technology that took the risk and benefits, WHO is currently completing the guide.
The guide is about how mosquitoes engineered to be deployed in developing countries, and is expected to be released later this year.
"We do not advocate engineered mosquitoes, as a 'magic bullet' to solve the dengue problem directly. But it will be a major component of an integrated program," says scientific director Oxitec, Luke Alpey.
Source: Okezone.com
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