MOSCOW, September 17 (RIA Novosti) – A team of scientists from the Eliminate Dengue international project are launching eradication trials in Indonesia aimed at containing dengue fever outbreaks, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"Usually we start off in a country at a relatively small pilot scale," Scott O'Neill, program leader of Eliminate Dengue said on Wednesday as quoted by The Wall Street Journal. "In Indonesia it's a couple of thousands," he added.
The trials involve releasing an army of mosquitoes specially bred with the Wolbachia bacteria that the scientists believe can virtually eliminate dengue. The idea is that the released mosquitoes will breed with wild insects, which would then pass the bacteria to their offspring and render them immune to dengue.
The first mosquitos will be released in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, which has a high prevalence of dengue outbreaks. The Indonesia trials come as a deadly outbreak of dengue fever is spreading in Malaysia, with the first outbreak in 70 years having been reported in Japan, and some cases having been registered in southern US states, including Florida and Texas.
According to O'Neill, "the severity of the disease is getting worse, the outbreaks are getting more frequent and the geographic range in increasing."
Dengue fever, which often spreads in tropical and subtropical areas in Asia, Latin America and Africa, was first reported in Indonesia in 1968. It is transmitted by tiger and dengue mosquitoes.
The incubation period of the infection is 5-10 days. Symptoms usually include mild fever, headaches, vomiting and muscle pain.
Fifty to 100 million people living in tropical or subtropical areas become infected with dengue fever each year.
The disease cannot be transmitted directly from person to person.
Currently there are no vaccines or drugs to combat dengue fever and experts claim prevention is the only cure.
