Thaindian News

Washington, April 2 (IANS) Researchers have found a bacterium that can stop dengue viruses from replicating in mosquitoes, Xinhua reported.
“In nature, about 28 percent of mosquito species harbour Wolbachia bacteria, but the mosquitoes that are the primary transmitters of dengue, Aedes aegypti, have no Wolbachia in them,” said Zhiyong Xi, assistant professor of entomology at Michigan State University (MSU) and study author.

“We found that Wolbachia is able to stop the dengue virus from replicating. If there is no virus in the mosquito, it can’t spread to people, so disease transmission can be blocked.”

Xi and his colleagues introduced the Wolbachia bacterium into Aedes aegypti mosquitoes by injecting embryos with this parasite. They have maintained the bacterium in the mosquitoes in the laboratory for nearly six years because it is passed from mothers to offspring.

When a Wolbachia-infected male mates with an uninfected female, the bacterium causes a reproductive abnormality that triggers early embryo death. Wolbachia doesn’t affect embryo development when a female contains the same Wolbachia as a male, so the bacterium can spread quickly, infecting an entire mosquito population.

The Wolbachia bacterium can’t be passed from mosquitoes to humans.

The study was published Thursday in the journal PLoS Pathogens.

About one-third of the world’s population is at risk of contracting dengue fever and up to 100 million people are infected each year. While most people recover in about two weeks, the infection can turn into dengue hemorrhagic fever, which causes bleeding from the nose and gums and can be fatal.