Researchers have found a way to reduce how effectively mosquitoes can transmit dengue fever, at least in the lab—and their work could be a step toward stopping the spread of the disease, which infects about 390 million people every year and can, in rare cases, be deadly.
By Meredith Rutland Bauer | MOTHERBOARD
The dengue virus is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito when the insect takes a bloodmeal from an infected human host. The virus goes through several phases and eventually infects the mosquito’s salivary glands, which means the next person it bites will be exposed.
A recent study in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases looks at genetically modified mosquitoes that were designed to be resistant to the dengue virus—and it seems that these researchers’ methods worked.
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