Indonesian Researchers Are Breeding 'Good' Mosquitoes

Researchers in Indonesia have discovered a strategy to combat disease-carrying mosquitos by developing a mosquito type that carries a bacterium that stops viruses like Dengue fever from multiplying within them. Wolbachia is a bacterium found in 60 percent of insect species, including mosquitos, fruit flies, moths, dragonflies, and butterflies.

According to the non-profit World Mosquito Program (WMP), which conducted the study,  Wolbachia bacterium was not detected in dengue-carrying Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes. The results of the study, which were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June, indicated that using Wolbachia-infected mosquitos reduced dengue cases by up to 77 percent and hospitalizations by up to 86 percent.

Global Dengue infections have grown quickly in recent decades, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with over half of the world's population is now at risk. Every year, between 100 and 400 Million illnesses are recorded.