Declaring war on all mosquitoes

This editorial appeared in the Chicago Tribune:

Last year, mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus spread from South America into the U.S.

Pregnant women, or those trying, lived in fear of a bite that could result in a baby with birth defects.

This year, the buzz is better: Reported Zika cases have dropped in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Time to sound the “all clear”? Absolutely not. “Zika hasn’t gone away,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We can’t afford to be complacent.”

Pesticides aren’t enough. Besides, those can kill beneficial insects like bees. New and lethally effective antimosquito weapons are urgently needed.

Enter, to our wild applause, Debug Fresno. That’s the largest field study in the U.S. so far to test a potential mosquito-control method using naturally occurring bacteria, not genetic modification. It’s a joint effort of Google parent Alphabet, through its life-sciences subsidiary known as Verily; Kentucky-based MosquitoMate; and the local mosquito abatement district.

How it works: Researchers release millions of male mosquitoes — they don’t bite; only the females do. These males have been treated with the bacteria Wolbachia, common in many insects. When these males mate with females in the wild, the resulting eggs will not hatch. No babies, no new generation — and a sharply reduced threat of Zika and other mosquitoborne viruses.

Fresno, Calif.’s mosquito warriors will release millions of bacteria-infected males through December in two city neighbourhoods, each about 300 acres.

Ultimately, we hope, this leads to World War M: A full-scale assault on all mosquitoes.