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Genetically modified mosquitoes cause 91 pct drop in dengue in Brazil

Xinhua, July 15, 2016 Adjust font size:

Genetically modified mosquitoes, released in Brazil by British company Oxitec, have succeeded in reducing cases of dengue by 91 percent in a year, according to official sources on Thursday.

Oxitec breeds genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to combat the spread of diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and the Zika virus.

Oxitec releases GM male mosquitoes with a self-limiting gene, essentially rendering them sterile and causing any offspring to die before they reach functional adulthood.

The mosquitoes were released in the El Dorado neighborhood of the city of Piracicaba near Sao Paulo in April 2015. From July 2014 to July 2015, El Dorado saw 133 cases of dengue. However, in the year since the release, the number has plummeted to 12.

In the rest of the city of Piracicaba, which has around 380,000 people, cases fell from 3,487 to 1,676, or a 52 percent reduction.

Brazil is living through epidemics of dengue, chikungunya and Zika, which are all carried by the Aedes aegypti.

For months, the government has been leading a massive fumigation and awareness campaign to try to eradicate its numbers, while thousands of cases of microcephaly among babies have been linked to the Zika virus. Endi