If all aedes mosquitoes will have wolbachia, they won’t be able to spread dengue virus, said Professor Scott Ritchie of James Cook University, Australia, at AIIMS on Monday while talking about vector borne disease preventive measures.
Wolbachia is a natural method for stopping dengue fever transmission. This method was used in Queensland, Austraila, when there was dengue outbreak.
“Wolbachia is naturally occurring insect bacterium found in up to 70 per cent of all insect species worldwide. This includes many mosquitoes that bite humans (Aedes Albopictus, Aedes notosciptus). In this technique, Wolbachia bacterium is micro-injected into the eggs of Aedes aegypti and once these mosquitoes are released they counter other viruses such as Chikungunya and Zika,” said Professor Ritchie, who has 40 years of experience in the medical research.
When Queensland in Australia suffered from dengue outbreak, Professor Ritchie developed the group of mosquitoes with wolbachia bacterium to fight the aedes vector. The dengue outbreak was alarming in Queensland but they controlled it with effective programming.
Since 2005-2011, a research work was being conducted to fight against vector aedes in Queensland, Australia, which was funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The medical researchers developed a group of wolbachia bacterium mosquito to counter the other aedes. Till the time, they also looked for the wolbachia mosquitoes offsprings to be released. To make the programme successful, a lot of community awareness was done along with the political support, said Professor Ritchie.
“People were made aware of our programme, that we are going to release wolbachia bacterium mosquitoes in the city. The programme was so effective that till May 2016, there is not a single mosquito without Wolbachia bacterium,” he said.
In a country like India, where aedes mosquito has spread its infection all over the country, AIIMS director Dr MC Misra said the programme should be replicated in India, provided it is implemented with lot of community awareness and Government support.
Meanwhile, with dengue season approaching, all the civic bodies responsible for dealing with fogging and dengue preparedness measures have pulled up their socks.
Dr AC Dhariwal, Director, National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) said, “This year NVBDCP is going to launch a mobile application ‘India Fights Dengue’. With this app, people can receive and get suggestion on dengue preventive measures.”
According to experts, Delhi topped the graph in 2015with more than 15,000 dengue cases followed by Punjab (8,000), Haryana (5,000), Karnataka (4,000) and Gujarat (3,000) respectively.
Dr MC Misra, AIIMS director; Dr Saumya Swaminathan DG Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Dr Dr AC Dhariwal, Dr lalit Dr, Head of Department AIIMS Virology and Dr Ritchie from Queensland who implemented wolbachia mechanism Australia shared their research papers aimed at fighting dengue.