Dengue breakthrough

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Tags: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, dengue fever, medical research, philanthropy, winter-2011

UQ researchers are leading a project aimed at eliminating dengue fever. Image Chris Stacey

In an effort to eliminate the global burden of dengue fever, an Australian-led international research team has completed a 12-week field trial in several Cairns suburbs.

“From January to March we released approximately 40 mosquitoes from every fourth house within the field trial areas of Yorkeys Knob and Gordonvale,” said Eliminate Dengue project leader Professor Scott O’Neill of the School of Biological Sciences.

“We should know soon if we are on the right track in our bid to stop the Aedes-aegypti mosquito from being able to transmit the dengue virus between people.”

The project is funded by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health as part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative.

It also receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council as well as the Queensland Government.

The field trial involved introducing strains of a naturally occurring bacterium called Wolbachia into the mosquito population, which through laboratory research has been shown to act like a vaccine for the mosquito.

Wolbachia mosquitoes have been bred in a purpose-built mosquito facility at James Cook University in Cairns.

In the lead up to January’s world-first release, the Eliminate Dengue team engaged in extensive community consultation to ensure local residents were fully aware of the project.

This resulted in large numbers of residents registering to allow the field team to release the mosquitoes from their back yards.

“Without the permission from residents to enter their yards, the field team would have to release the mosquitoes from the street which would not give us the best results,” Professor O’Neill said.

Prior to the release, the research team spent December visiting homes in the field trial areas and manually reducing existing natural mosquito numbers.

“If these initial trials are successful they will be followed by similar trials in Vietnam towards the end of 2011,” Professor O’Neill said.

“If those experiments are successful then we might expect to see full implementation and control of dengue in the Cairns region in a two to four year timeframe.”

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