[e63f67dd-065b]

This is great news. Dengue was a constant problem in my home country of Malaysia, and remains a problem to this day. I still remember all the public education campaigns about it that I saw when I was young (random ads on TV about making sure there's no stagnant water, seeking medical help if you notice <symptoms>, etc), I'm very glad that there are easily implementable solutions to these problems.

As a side note, I wonder why this kind of research is not more popular in university labs of tropical countries. Malaysia, Singapore, India, etc are home to plenty of university labs that should have the expertise and motivation to do this kind of thing, but they're really dropping the ball if they're not working on it right now. Every time I read about new mosquito fighting innovations it's out of an American or European lab, far away from where it's most impactful.

Is it a problem of funding? Somehow the Malaysian government funds less mosquito disease research than the US? Political will? I would hope that the health ministries of tropical countries are willing to throw some money at the problem. Institutional knowledge? Plenty of the professors are educated in Australia/UK/US, so that can't be it. Coverage? Western media covers western labs, and don't notice when labs elsewhere do the same thing?

[avar]

    > making sure there's no stagnant water[...]

A couple of months ago I found mosquito larva in some stagnant water in a parking garage, and made sure to pore some bleach into that stagnant puddle when I returned.

I've wondered if the opposite of the "no stagnant water" advice wouldn't be more effective in countries that suffer more from mosquitos. I.e. intentionally create ideal breeding ponds for mosquitos, then kill the eggs/larva/pupa before they emerge from the water as adults.

Edit: Searching some more there's commercial products which allow for the DIY creation of cheap mosquito larva traps: https://www.audubonva.org/news/how-to-set-up-a-mosquito-larv... & https://summitchemical.com/products/mosquito-dunks/

[nicd]

This assumes that the new ponds will pull mosquitoes away from existing ponds. Is this true? (Maybe mosquitoes are limited by suitable breeding grounds, and introducing decoys could have no effect.)

[avar]

If you get mosquito larva in your honeypot pond it is a suitable breeding ground as far as the mosquito is concerned.

So this would work for the same reason the more high-tech release of sterile mosquitos works, it robs them of a breeding opportunity.

But perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question...

[Waterluvian]

I think the question is about if there’s an upper bound on mosquito reproduction and if you can “steal” a chunk of that and kill it. Or if you’re really just making even more mosquitos overall and your culling doesn’t actually change the bottom line.

[throwawayapples]

Yes; you might have seen mosquito "dunks" that are small donut shaped things that you can drop into flower pots or other areas that don't drain properly. They dissolve over time. There are also mosquito traps (bird-house sized or even just small plastic bags that you cut open). They can be filld with water to activate.

[tim333]

Maybe it's easier to be releasing them somewhere else? Oxford based Oxitec also have mosquitos to counter Dengue but genetically modified rather than with Wolbachia. https://www.wired.com/story/genetically-engineered-mosquitoe...

[pkaye]

US CDC was originally created to deal with mosquitos causing malaria in the US. The US FDA also had a priority review voucher program to incentivize development a prevention or treatment for various tropical diseases including Dengue.

https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/center-drug-evaluation-and-res...

Also there have been an number of locally acquired dengue causes in the US. Maybe with climate change it might increase.

https://www.cdc.gov/dengue/statistics-maps/historic-data.htm...

[sohkamyung]

Here are some links to research on using Wolbachia in Malaysia and Singapore:

[1] Wolbachia Malaysia [ https://imr.nih.gov.my/wolbachia/ ]

[2] Singapore NEA Wolbachia info [ https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources/researc... ]

[3] A 2021 news article on Wolbachia in Malaysia [ https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-fight-dengue-m... ]

[stubish]

You can give your aid money to the local government, or you can use it to fund a hospital or research facility flying your flag, employing locals and hopefully generating good news so its continued funding can becomes a political tool. But this rationalization can only explain the poorer countries in the region.

[csomar]

It is not a funding problem. These countries (ie: Third-world and less developed) never had these research structures in the first place. So they are lacking on guidance on how to execute. A good starting point is to look at government revenues. Indonesia has half the revenue of the government of Belgium. Belgium has less people than Jakarta.

[melagonster]

Malaysia, Singapore and Australia did experiment in field, there are not many countries accomplished this. so they did it.