Verily, the life science’s arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has hatched a plan to release about 20 million lab-made, bacteria-infected mosquitos upon Fresno, California — and that’s a good thing!
You see, the Zika-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito is prevalent in the area. Earlier this year, a woman contracted the first confirmed case of Zika in Fresno through sexual contact with a partner who had been traveling. Now there’s the fear of most likely inevitable mosquito meets patient if we don’t do something about it. Verily’s plan, called the Debug Project, hopes to now wipe out this potential Zika-carrying mosquito population to prevent further infections.
Could messing with the mosquito population have some unforeseen disastrous consequences? Not likely. This particular mosquito species entered the area in 2013.
So what’s the plan to get rid of them? Verily’s male mosquitos were infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, which is harmless to humans but when they mate with and infect their female counterparts, it makes their eggs unable to produce offspring.
Bonus, male mosquitos don’t bite so Fresno residents won’t have to worry about itching more than they usually would.
No word from the company on how much something like this will cost, but Linus Upson, an engineer on the team releasing the mosquitos told MIT Technology Review the company planned to do something similar in Australia next.
“We want to show this can work in different kinds of environments,” he told the magazine.
Verily plans to release about 1 million mosquitos a week over a 20-week period in two 300 acre neighborhoods in the Fresno area — the largest U.S. release to date of mosquitos infected with the Wolbachia bacteria.
Those in the Fancher Creek neighborhood may notice a Verily van releasing healthy swarm of the little bugs throughout its streets starting today.
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