Thailand successful in sterilising aedes aegypti mosquitoes

BANGKOK, May 3 (TNA) - Thailand is now successful in sterilising aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the carrier of dengue fever, through the so-called two-step method. Dr. Udom Kachinthorn, President of Mahidol University, together with Head of the Center of Excellence for Vectors and Vector-Borne Diseases (CVVD), under the Faculty of Science, Pattamaporn Krittayapong, announced the success at a press conference in Bangkok on May 2, after a meeting on cooperation to support the sterilisation of the aedes aegypti mosquitoes in order to control deadly diseases carried by the mosquitoes, in which representatives of the Bangkok-based Office of Atoms for Peace and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also participated. Dr. Udom acknowledged that his university has successfully carried out the two-step method for the first time in Thailand and in the world, in which two strains of wolbachia bacteria were injected into male aedes aegypti mosquitoes, together with a treatment with a low level of radiation, causing them to be sterile before they were released into the environment. Dr. Udom said the method has been proven to help reduce the number of aedes aegypti mosquitoes in trial areas by 100 per cent. According to the university president, the method should be, thus, widely used to prevent and control aedes aegypti mosquitoes-borne diseases, including dengue fever, chikungunya, zika virus and yellow fever. The university president noted that the method will be first used in Chacheongsao Province in the Thai East late this month. (TNA)