Plan to release 600,000 male mosquitoes to kill disease-carrying mosquitoes
According to Gizmodo, the Maryland-based company Bee Safe Mosquito Control will release male mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria around Washington DC this summer. Male mosquitoes will mate with female mosquitoes that do not carry the bacteria, making them sterile and gradually reducing their population over time. Similar programs have been implemented in several other countries to reduce mosquitoes and the diseases associated with them.
Wolbachia is a group of bacteria common in most insects, including mosquitoes. This bacteria has a complex relationship with its host. In some insects such as mosquitoes, Wolbachia can even affect reproduction through cytoplasmic incompatibility. Wolbachia mutates both the sperm and eggs of parasitized mosquitoes. When male mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia mate with female mosquitoes that are not infected or carry other strains of the bacteria, the mutated sperm will harm the eggs immediately after fertilization, causing the eggs to not hatch.
Scientists are taking advantage of this incompatibility as a form of biological pesticide. They introduced a special strain of Wolbachia (different from strains found in nature) into male mosquitoes raised in the laboratory, then released large numbers into the wild. Because female mosquitoes only mate once, those paired with male mosquitoes from the lab will never lay hatchable eggs.
Some countries such as Brazil, Singapore and Thailand have tested or licensed the use of male mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia to reduce mosquito numbers. At the end of 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency granted permission to widely apply this technique in the US, using modified Aedes albopictus mosquitoes called ZAP male mosquitoes from MosquitoMate, a commercial company founded by a research team from the University of Kentucky. This is also the type of mosquito that Bee Safe will deploy this summer. According to Independent, Bee Safe will release a total of about 600,000 male ZAP mosquitoes in the Washington DC metropolitan area from June to September. A. albopictus mosquitoes, also known as Asian tiger mosquitoes, can transmit diseases such as dengue fever, Zika and chikungunya. However, A. albopictus is not as dangerous as the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which only sucks human blood. MosquitoMate also grows Wolbachia-infected A. aegypti mosquitoes, called WB1 males. In early June, Guardian reported that Google was asking the US government for permission to release 32 million sterile male mosquitoes in California and Florida. As part of the "Debug" program, Google is taking advantage of technology to raise an army of sterile mosquitoes to reduce the number of disease-carrying insects. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reviewing Google's request to release 16 million mosquitoes per year in two states within two years. Unlike Bee Safe, Google focuses on using male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia bacteria. The technique of using mosquitoes to kill mosquitoes needs time to evaluate its effectiveness, but if successful, it will provide a more environmentally friendly weapon in the fight against this dangerous disease-carrying insect.