The municipality of Rio de Janeiro began, this Tuesday (2), a new wave of releases of “wolbitos”, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the bacteria Wolbachia.
The microorganism is used to combat arboviruses such as denguezika and chikungunya, as it prevents the development of viruses that cause these diseases within their main vector, Aedes aegypti.
The release was carried out in the Caju neighborhood, in the north zone. Next week, the insects will be released in the city center and on the island of Paquetá.
The idea is that the release will be carried out in these three locations over 20 weeks, in partnership with the Municipal Health Department, to increase the number of these mosquitoes.
In the environment, females contaminated with Wolbachia mate with mosquitoes without the bacteria. Puppies are born without the ability to transmit diseases.
If it works, over time, the wolbite population increases, reducing the population of arbovirus vectors, and eliminating the need for new releases.
“We will carry out these releases by the end of August and hope to first establish this population of mosquitoes in these three areas. Who knows, next year we will be able to assess a reduction in the transmission of cases of these diseases”, explains Diogo Chalegre, leader of Institutional Relations at WMP (World Mosquito Program, in Portuguese) in Brazil.
The method was initially implemented in Niterói, in the metropolitan region, in 2014. The release was carried out in all neighborhoods. Then it was the capital’s turn, which has already released the species in 29 neighborhoods.
“What we can say is that there was an average reduction of 38% in dengue cases, in the 29 neighborhoods of Rio where we have already worked”, says Chalegre.
WMP coordinates strategies involving Wolbachia in the country, in partnership with Fiocruz and funding from the Ministry of Health.
Currently, according to the program’s institutional relations leader, 40 million wolbite eggs are produced per month. At least 3.2 million people live in the areas where they were released.
However, a new biofactory began to be built in Curitiba, in March this year, to increase production capacity to 400 million eggs per month, starting in 2025.
With the expansion of capacity, it is expected to intensify releases to new locations, benefiting up to 70 million people over the next ten years.
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