At first glance, this might seem like bad news.
Why is NEA releasing Mosquitoes at Tampines and Nee Soon? Why would they do something like this? Aren’t there enough mosquitoes buzzing around Singapore already?
Now, just relax and listen to what NEA has to say regarding this issue.
Firstly, this is actually the second phase of a study, where Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes are used to suppress the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in Singapore.
Secondly, only male Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes are released into the wild. And we all know that male mosquitoes are the nice guys, since they don’t suck our blood!
Lastly, the whole point of releasing these mosquitoes is so that these male mosquitoes will breed with female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. By doing so, the eggs of the female mosquitoes would not hatch, hence reducing the population of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes!
Hmm, let’s just hope this wouldn’t have an adverse effect on the environment!
Separating the female from the male
As NEA’s ultimate goal is to reduce the overall mosquito population, learning to separate the male Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes from the female ones would be essential.
“The Wolbachia itself will have some blocking of the dengue transmission so there is no danger of dengue transmission but in the long-term, we do not want the population of female Wolbachia mosquitoes out there because it just means that in the future, we will not be able to continue to use the release of male Wolbachia mosquitoes to suppress the population,” said NEA’s Director-General of Public Health, Derek Ho.
Hence, the mosquitoes will undergo a low-dose X-ray treatment to sterilise any female mosquitoes which are not eliminated through the initial gender sorting process.
“This very low dosage of X-ray that we are using will sterilise the females but will not affect the virility of the males so that even if this very small number of females are released, they will not be able to produce any progeny,” Mr Ho added.
Increasing release frequency
According to NEA, Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes will only survive for an average of four days in the field. Hence, to sustain the population of the Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, they will have to release the mosquitoes more frequently.
NEA will now be releasing the mosquitoes twice a week compared to the once a week during the first phase.
Mosquitoes will also be released during an earlier stage of their life cycle in an attempt to give them more time to survive in the wild.
That being said, please do not mess around with the mosquito traps and pupal containers placed by NEA! We could all benefit from having fewer Aedes aegypti mosquitoes around after all!
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This article was first published on goodyfeed.com
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