Newsweek.com - When U.S. temperatures rise in the summertime, most states anticipate growth in the mosquito population, and a corresponding increase in transmission of blood-borne viruses that can cause serious illnesses.
The biggest threats are Zika and West Nile viruses. Once confined to remote tropical locales, these viruses now crop up in seasonably warm and damp regions of North America, carried by two species of mosquito: Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus.
In June, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that populations of both these mosquito species have significantly increased in the southern parts of the U.S. Reporting on findings from a study in the Journal of Medical Entomology, the agency said the number of A. aegypti has increased by 21 percent, and the population ofA. albopictus increased by 10 percent. Together, these two mosquito species have reached a cumulative new 165 counties within the past year.
The emerging threat of mosquito-borne diseases in the U.S. has led researchers and private companies to find novel ways to shrink the population of these “little ninjas,” as some specialists call them. On July 14, a startup known as Verily, owned by Google, began releasing a million specially engineered male mosquitoes in Fresno, California. These lab-bred bugs are carrying a bacteria that stops successful mating. If the approach works, the mosquito populations could die out. Only female mosquitoes bite, which means these engineered bugs aren’t capable of spreading the virus to more people. (ontinueReading
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