A British company is preparing to increase supplies of its genetically modified mosquitoes to Brazil, in it's bid to fight the Zika virus.
Oxitec, a company which began as part of the UniversIty of Oxford has pioneered a technique to genetically modify mosquitoes so that the males are, to some degree, sterile. When they are released in the wild, they cause a population crash. Our reporter Catherine Drew went along to visit the company.
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This is the sound of the machine which is injecting mosquito eggs with two new genes… one is a self-limiting gene that means when the male Aedes aegypti mosquito mates, it's offspring will not live long enough to breed themselves. The other is a marker gene….so that scientists can identify their mosquitos when they are caught in the wild, to evaluate their progress. Andy McKemey is head of field operations at oxitec.
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"By sustained release of our Oxitec male mosquitos, we can essentially take out the next generation in the field and using this system we've been able to achieve fantastic results. Achieving greater than 90 per cent suppression in all the studies we've done so far in Caymen Islands, Panama and Brazil. "
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The company were already active in the Piracicaba region of brazil in a scheme to fight dengue fever, when the zika virus hit the headlines. Health authorities in Brazil then wanted to upscale the work of oxitec as alarm about the effects of zika on unborn children began to become evident.
Traditionally many people have been wary of anything that is genetically modified, but oxitec slay they are having multiple conversations with health authorities from all over south america and the carribean.. areas affected by the latest outbreak.
Head of field operations Andy McKemey says the company first has to explain the science behind their GM mosquito, to stress there is no threat to human health.
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"In terms of threats to human health and environment there's no danger there its been termed as one of the most environmentally benign insect control methods ever invented. One of the key messages we need to get across when we're working in a new community is that we release just the males, and males don't actually bite, it's the females that bite and when people realize that, that reassures them."
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Researchers at Oxitec say the news that a case of the zika virus in Texas was found to have been transmitted sexually endorses their argument that it is the mosquito population that must be tackled. CEO of the company is Hadyn Parry.
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"Now if you can transmit this sexually then everybody is at risk so you have to go back to source, you've got to control this mosquito. And I'm sorry to say but Zika will not be the last virus. Unless we focus on the mosquito and get that sorted we'll have recurring problems of this kind."
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Oxitec is now ramping up it's operations in Brazil and expects its model there to be replicated elsewhere, as the threat from the zika virus continues to haunt countries across South America and the caribean..
Catherine Drew, London