In a flap over GM mosquito plan to fight Dengue fever
A BRITISH firm’s plan to release swarms of genetically mass-produced mosquitoes has Florida inhabitants in a flap.
Oxford shire-based Oxide aims to release the insects in a bid to control a possible outbreak of the mosquito-borne Dengue fever at the request of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.
Oxford shire-based Oxide aims to release the insects in a bid to control a possible outbreak of the mosquito-borne Dengue fever at the request of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District.
However, 100,000 Floridians have signed an online petition prepared by a Key West mother in a bid to stop the planned released of thousands of GM muzziest.
Petition organizer and mother-of-three Mila de Mier said: “As a community we’ve already said we don’t want these mosquitoes in our backyards, but Oxitec isn’t listening.”
Oxide would let loose its
genetically modified male mosquitoes in the Keys so they would breed with wild females, and they would carry an engineered gene that would ultimately kill the females and their larvae.
Only female mosquitoes bite or are equipped with the mouth-parts for biting, which spreads diseases such as malaria and Dengue fever.
“Florida Keys had Dengue for the first time in many, many years in 2009,” said Hadyn Parry, Oxitec’s chief executive officer, “So they upped their spend hugely in terms of chemical applications, inspections and manpower but despite best efforts the next year in 2010 they had double the number of local cases.”
Mr Parry stressed that Oxitec was invited by Florida authorities to carry out the mosquito release. The Florida Keys Mosquito Control District employs 97 people, 71 full-time, to monitor and control mosquitoes.
“To get Dengue in an area you need the mosquito and the virus,” Mr Parry said. “They have the mosquito and cannot get rid of it so each year they are ‘at risk’. But if visitors arrive carrying Dengue in their bloodstream then they could have contagion.”
Key West has about three million visitors a year – and a large number are from the Caribbean where there is a lot of Dengue, with a big outbreak in the Bahamas last year.
Dengue occurs in more than 100 countries, and the World Health Organization (Who) estimates around 100 million people get the disease annually, which often causes its victims to have contortions due to intense joint and muscle pain. Around half-a-million people are hospitalized each year, of whom around 12,500 die. A Who spokesman said