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Dengue Fever Transmission Has Been Cut by an Incredible 77% in a Real-World Trial - ScienceAlert
Jun 11, 2021 1 min, 9 secs

In a randomized, double-blind trial, researchers introduced mosquitoes infected with the virus-fighting Wolbachia bacteria into an Indonesian city. Over the next 27 months, the participants in the areas with the bacteria-carrying insects experienced 77 percent less dengue than those in the control group.

"This result demonstrates what an exciting breakthrough Wolbachia can be - a safe, durable and efficacious new product class for dengue control is just what the global community needs," says infectious researcher Cameron Simmons from Monash University.

Dengue fever, caused by the dengue virus, is spread by female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes.

Excitingly, while dengue is the focus of this work, Wolbachia has also been shown to work against yellow fever, Zika virus and chikungunya.

Already in Australia's far north Queensland, dengue has been basically eradicated thanks to the World Mosquito Program's Wolbachia trial.

The lab results showed that only 67 people (or 2.3 percent) in the intervention clusters where Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes had been introduced had clinically diagnosed dengue fever, compared to 9.4 percent of people (318 cases) in the control clusters

The study also found that 86 percent fewer people who lived in intervention clusters ended up in hospital as a result of fever: 13 hospitalizations compared to 102 in the control areas

In far north Queensland, Australia, it only took four years for no dengue transmissions to be recorded following the release of Wolbachia mosquitoes in the Cairns region; however, it's worth noting the disease was never endemic there

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