With
50-100 people infected each year, dengue fever is one of the fastest growing
mosquito born diseases. Scientists in
Brazil know that, being carried about by mosquitoes, killing out dengue fever
is almost impossible, so they have decided to modify the mosquitoes’ eggs
rather than try to kill them all. These
lab-bred male mosquitoes receive and gene so that when they mate with a female
in the wild, either it prevents the female from having offspring, or causes the
next generation to have shorter life spans, hopefully short enough that they
cannot spread dengue fever.
This
article was short, yet effective in its message. Many people over in Brazil, or in any of the
other countries that are threatened by dengue fever, should be interested. Author Alexandra Sifferlin did an excellent job
on this essay, as usual, bringing up statistics and quotes to support her
reasoning.
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