Phase 2 of trials underway in Jalna on ‘friendly’ mosquitoes genetically modified to cause offspring to die. Next step? Limited tests in open field

EVEN as urban local bodies gear up for annual monsoon outbreaks of dengue and malaria, inside a nondescript mesh cage at Jalna in central Maharashtra, trials are underway on several generations of a “friendly” mosquito that a handful of countries are already experimenting with for vector control programmes.

In the cage are hundreds of Aedes Aegypti vector mosquitoes, responsible for spreading dengue and chikungunya among other diseases, but engineered through advanced biotechnology to be self-limiting — in other words, genetically modified to cause offspring to die................Read more

Source: The Indian Express