Singapore Fights Dengue Mosquitoes With Other Mosquitoes
SINGAPORE FIGHTS DENGUE USING MOSQUITOES – We are definitely familiar with the phrase “fight fire with fire”, now Singapore fights mosquitoes with other mosquitoes.
In Singapore, COVID-19 isn’t the only deadly disease they have been facing. Recently, there has been a surge of dengue related cases in the country attribute to a mosquito called the aedes aegypti.
To combat the disease spreading blood suckers, Singapore released male mosquitoes carrying a special bacteria called “Wolbachia”. The goal of these mosquitoes is to find female Dengue mosquitoes to impregnate.
However, because of the special bacteria, it’s carrying, the female mosquitoes eggs don’t hatch. As such, the number of mosquitoes in a certain area drastically decreases.
According to an article from GMA, this year, over 26,000 cases of dengue was reported in Singapore. This was significantly higher than the number of cases back in 2013.
But, there has been doubts regarding the effectivity of the strategy, especially in densely populated urban areas. This was because the government needed to flood areas with sterile male mosquitoes. The problem now is people can’t tell the difference.
As such, they fear that people would just swat and kill the mosquitoes they bred to fend off dengue. However, it needs to be noted that only female mosquitoes bite and look for blood. Meanwhile, male mosquitos suck nectar.
Based on an article from Metode, the female mosquito needs blood so she could produce her eggs. This is because the nectar does not provide enough proteins for them to produce a new generation of eggs.
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