IN A small city in Northern Australia populated by around 187,000 people, a new breed of mosquitoes were released into the environment four years ago in the hope that the dengue disease, which is a problem in the city, will be finally eradicated.
This year, according to Australian researchers, that city called Townsville does not have the dengue disease anymore, thanks to a bacteria called Wolbachia.
According to international news reports, the Australian researchers have apparently bred a special type of mosquitoes that carry the bacteria Wolbachia, which naturally occurs in a majority of insects and prevents the transmission of the dengue fever and is not harmful to humans.
The research on Wolbachia is under the World Mosquito Program and is an attempt to finally eliminate the dreaded dengue virus and disease that has been the cause of so much fear and misery especially in poor third world countries.
After Townsville, it was reported that in 2016, Wolbachia-laden mosquitoes were also planned to be released in several areas in Brazil and Colombia under an 18-million dollar project funded by an international team of donors to include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Now, if these so-called Wolbachia laden mosquitoes are indeed effective in eliminating the dengue disease, perhaps it is high time for the Department of Health to consider enlisting these type of mosquitoes to also eradicate dengue in the country.
At a cost of around 15 Australian dollars or P588.39 at the going rate per person, the national government may have to seriously consider such scientific breakthroughs to solve the recurring dengue epidemic in the country.
Maybe our health officials can try to communicate and negotiate with these Australian researcher under the World Mosquito Program and request that an army of Wolbachian laden mosquitoes will also be sent and spread into one of our local communities such as the City of Baguio to test the effectiveness of the said bacteria against dengue in the locality. If it results in success, then maybe, our health officials or even the Department of Science and Technology can also learn or copy the research made by the Australians, so that this can be adopted in the country as a permanent solution to the dengue problem.
It can be recalled that the dengue virus spreads its deadly disease in the country for so many years until we were able to somehow control and reduce its spread through the program through the so called 4'oclock habit of search, destroy and clean breeding sites of mosquitoes. But if the Wolbachia bearing mosquito can be found to be much more effective as apparently evident in the Townsville experiment, then perhaps our country can revised its program and simply allow the propagation of the mosquitoes bred with Wolbachia.
And if the Wolbachia experiment done here in the country is a success, then we can finally say goodbye to the much feared dengue disease.