THURSDAY, March 28, 2024
nationthailand

Mahidol farm for sterilised mosquitoes

Mahidol farm for sterilised mosquitoes

Mahidol University has successfully conducted research on a two-step sterilisation technique for the Aedes mosquito genus and now wants to establish the world’s first “farm” or factory to sterile the disease-carrying insects.

“This method of sterilisation of Aedes is the country’s first and the world’s first that concretely applies both X-ray technology and injection of Wolbachia bacteria,” university president Udom Kachintorn said yesterday.
The team has already sterilised some 10,000 Aedes mosquitoes in the laboratory, he said.
Next, they will conduct a real-environment test of this method at a pilot 150-household community in tambon Hua Samrong of Chachoengsao’s Plaeng Yao district by this month’s end.
They aim to release 100 sterilised mosquitoes per home and will follow up for six months.
If it proves effective, they will go ahead and set up the farm or factory for Aedes sterilisation in the hope of exterminating the insect’s population in nature.
This would help reduce the number of patients suffering from dengue fever, Chikungunya, Zika fever and yellow fever.
This research result was from the university’s Centre of Excellence for Vectors and Vector-Borne Diseases. They received from Australia’s International Atomic Energy Agency a donation of X-ray machines worth Bt35 million to use in this method, which boas the capacity of sterilising 100,000 mosquitoes per time.
Researcher Pattamaporn Kittayapong said the sterilised Aedes aegypti mosquitoes would mate with females in the wild and make the females sterile as well.
The mosquitoes sterilised via this two-step method will not affect the balance of nature because they will die within two to three weeks, she said.
For the Chachoengsao action plan, they will release 100 sterilised mosquitoes per household in the community, which is located at least 500 metres away from other communities, she said.

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