Mosquitos that carry Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases have been discovered in our community. To prevent the health problems that the spread of the mosquito may pose to the residents, the town council is debating on the best way to deal with this issue. I support the use of Genetically Engineered mosquitos to fight the Zika virus. Mosquitos have become part of our daily lives since they live amongst us. The mosquitos bite causes not only an itch but contract lethal diseases such as malaria, Zika, dengue etc. The fact is that control and prevention of mosquitos such as using pesticides, repellants and removing dumb sites have failed and mosquitos are still spreading posing danger to the health of people. For instance, Zika is associated with causing abnormalities in infants born to infected mothers. Most Zika mosquitos hide inside making it difficult for them to be killed by insecticides sprayed by trucks. Some mosquitos are already resistant to pesticides ( Yakob & Walker, 2016) . This implies that using pesticides and other traditional methods is not a solution .
The right solution to this problem is using genetically engineered mosquitos instead of chemicals. Oxitec, a biotech company uses this approach to introduce a gene that is engineered to mosquitos bred in the laboratory (Facchinelli et al, 2013). The genetically engineered mosquitos possess a self-limiting gene that generates a protein that messes up the cellular structure in the transition of the mosquito between larva and adult. The lab-bred mosquitos reach maturity due to exposure to tetracycline. When these genetically engineered mosquitos crossbreed with the wild mosquito, their offspring inherit the self-limiting gene and since it is not exposed to tetracycline, it dies before it matures. These lab-bred mosquitos can be used to eliminate mosquitos carrying Zika Virus in our community. The release of the engineered mosquito does not have unfriendly impacts on human health or even the environment.
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This method has been tested in Brazil where the genetically engineered mosquitos were released and the population of wild mosquitos declined leading to a reduction of disease transmission ( Harris et al, 2011). Use of genetically engineered mosquitos is an eco-friendly method of controlling the wild mosquito population. Moreover, the engineered mosquitos do not transmit diseases to human since it is only the male mosquitos that are lab-bred. There are non-chemical methods that can be used to eliminate wild mosquitos such as using bacteria to infect them and gene drive concept.
References
Facchinelli, L., Valerio, L., Ramsey, J. M., Gould, F., Walsh, R. K., Bond, G., ... & Scott, T. W. (2013). Field cage studies and progressive evaluation of genetically-engineered mosquitoes. PLoS neglected tropical diseases , 7 (1), e2001.
Harris, A. F., Nimmo, D., McKemey, A. R., Kelly, N., Scaife, S., Donnelly, C. A., ... & Alphey, L. (2011). Field performance of engineered male mosquitoes. Nature biotechnology , 29 (11), 1034.
Yakob, L., & Walker, T. (2016). Zika virus outbreak in the Americas: the need for novel mosquito control methods. The Lancet Global Health , 4 (3), e148-e149.
