Around 18 months after the gene-hacked strain was released into the wild, the native mosquito population bounced up to almost pre-release levels.
Even the best laid plans can go awry—and one public health initiative in Brazil is a case in point. The project in question involved releasing an army of gene-edited mosquitoes into the wild in order to stop the spread of vector-borne diseases, from yellow fever and dengue to the Zika virus. But instead of depleting the population, the experiment may have made the mosquitoes even stronger.
It was thought that by short-circuiting certain parts of the insect's DNA, researchers could squash the target population's size withoutaffecting its genetics. This is a plan being put to the test in various regions plagued by the disease-riddled bugs—apparently with varying levels of success.with a defective gene to limit their fertility—or at the very least ensure any offspring produced would be too weak to progress into adulthood and reproduce themselves.
The effectiveness of the project appears to have broken down at around the 18-month mark. Having initially been suppressed by the arrival of the gene-edited mosquitoes, the local population bounced back to nearly pre-release levels. Some suggest this can be explained by mating discrimination against the mutated males, but this is still just speculation.
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