Mutant UK mozzies to fight Zika in Florida
MUTANT mosquitoes are poised to be released in Florida to fight the Zika virus – days after the first confirmed cases of the disease being contracted in the US.
The Aedes aegypti mosquito, which spreads the disease, has been genetically modified by a UK firm to pass on a ‘killer’ gene that shortens the lives of their young. This should make the population crash, halting the virus’s spread.
Pest control officers have been spraying insecticide in Miami, where there have been 14 cases of Zika – thought to have been spread by mosquitoes.
The virus – rife in parts of South and Central America – has been blamed for thousands of babies born with underdeveloped brains and small heads.
With fears in Florida for health – as well as the state’s £50billion tourist industry – officials want to release millions of the GM mosquitoes. Trials in Brazil, the Cayman Islands and elsewhere have shown the numbers of disease-carrying mosquitoes fall more than 90 per cent when mutant mosquitoes are deployed, compared with the 30 per cent reduction from insecticides and other measures.
The World Health Organisation has endorsed use of GM mosquitoes, which were the brainchild of Oxford University firm Oxitec, and US regulators provisionally approved their release.
Dr Andrew McKemey, Oxitec’s head of field operations, said: ‘We are expecting the final decision any minute now. We could start immediately in the Florida Keys. We’ve already built a laboratory there with a mass production unit.’
Some 33 members of the US military – including a pregnant woman – have contracted Zika overseas, CNN reported yesterday, citing a Pentagon spokesman.