A breakthrough study in the Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia has discovered that infecting mosquitoes with a naturally occurring bacteria can drastically reduce the transmission of the killer disease dengue.
The results of the 27-month trial in the city of Yogyakarta by the World Mosquito Programme – which cut incidence rates by 77 per cent – is a major boost for efforts to fight a tropical mosquito-borne viral disease that threatens nearly half of the world’s population.