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by BurningFrog 1031 days ago
The solution of replacing the few mosquito species that can spread malaria with other mosquito species should work. It's hard to see how the parasite will work around having nowhere to live.

It will probably take a few decades - and many million dead Africans - before the world gets over it's squeamishness around that.
2 comments
HWR_14 1031 days ago
I doubt it will take decades. There are attempts going on right now with releasing genetically engineered mosquitos that should take care of the population. However, because this is the attempt to use genetic engineering to wipe out a species they are testing on some isolated islands to make sure we aren't destroying other species and it technically works before releasing it into the wild.

That is, it's not squeamishness about the goal. It's making sure we don't mess up the execution and wipe out other species in collateral damage and/or have the mosquitos develop a countermeasure that causes it to be harder to accomplish because we had an imperfect initial attempt.

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BurningFrog 1031 days ago
I see a lot of squeamishness about deliberately exterminate certain mosquito species.

That is an absolute taboo for many people. How powerful they'll be in the final determination remains to be seen. Hopefully you're right.

For something that kills 1700 people a day, I would wish for a lot of urgency and corner cuttings!

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HWR_14 1031 days ago
Releasing something to intentionally wipe out a species, should it prove not to correctly contained, can cause a lot of damage. I would hate for corners to be cut.
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BurningFrog 1030 days ago
In real world decisions, you have to account for both costs and benefits.

If we ignore the cost of 1700 people dying per day I agree with you. But to me the chance of saving a human life every 50 seconds vastly outweighs the risk to some random local mosquito species.

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HWR_14 1030 days ago
The risk is that the species eradication leaps between species and wipes out other species we want to preserve. Seems like a negligee risk to me, but maybe it is real?
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wil421 1031 days ago
Not sure about Africa but in the US the problematic mosquitoes are non-native. In the Florida Keys they’ve been piloting releasing genetically modified males. According to the article when they mate the offsprings are male only. FYI, the males don’t bite.

[1] https://fla-keys.com/news/article/10845/fkmcd-oxitec-mosquit...

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