Hanoi (VNA) – The Ministry of Health (MoH) isplanning to expand the pilot release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in somesouthern areas of Vietnam in the next few years to prevent dengue fever.

The MoH’s Preventive Medicine Department said onSeptember 7 that representatives of the ministry and some institutes recentlyhad a working session with Prof. Scott O’Neil from Australia’s MonashUniversity, who leads the global Eliminate Dengue Programme, to discuss theplan.

The department said dengue fever is currently amajor public health issue. It has become an epidemic nationwide with tens ofthousands of infected cases every year. Notably, in 2017, dengue fever hasbroken out in many localities and lasted for many months with total cases muchhigher than the previous years, especially in Hanoi.

The disease is transmitted via Aedes aegyptimosquitoes which are present in almost all localities in the country. Dengue preventionhas encountered an array of difficulties since there haven’t been any vaccinesor specific medicine. The key prevention measure is to control mosquitoes.

A promising measure that has been piloted in TriNguyen Island, the south central province of Khanh Hoa is to infect Aedesaegypti mosquitoes with Wolbachia bacteria and then release them into theenvironment.

Wolbachia is anatural bacterium present in about 60 percent of insect species,including some mosquitoes. However, it is not usually found in the Aedesaegypti mosquito.

[Dengue prevention efforts to continue]

Global scientists succeeded in infecting Aedesaegypti mosquitoes with Wolbachia and proved that this bacterium can curb thegrowth of dengue, Zika and other viruses inside the mosquito and theirtransmission to human.

While female mosquitoes with Wolbachia pass thisbacterium to following generations, those without Wolbachia are unable toreproduce when they mate with male mosquitoes with the bacterium. Therefore,the long-term effect of the use of Wolbachia will be maintained while thenumber of mosquitoes will not increase.

The Preventive Medicine Department said theresearch team of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology andAustralian scientists successfully raised Aedes aegypti mosquitoes withWolbachia. These mosquitoes were introduced in Tri Nguyen Island in two phases,from April to September 2013 and from May to November 2014.

Surveys in recently years showed that while thenumber of dengue fever cases in Khanh Hoa was very high, there hasn’t been anyconcentrated dengue fever hotbeds in Tri Nguyen Island since the last releasein 2014. In August 2016, the MoH recognised the safety and effect ofWolbachia-infected mosquitoes and the use of these mosquitoes received supportfrom the local community, the department noted.

The Eliminate Dengue programme in Vietnam isasking for permission to pilot the release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes ina small mainland area in Nha Trang city from late 2017.-VNA