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Climate change is anticipated to worsen the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like dengue. It facilitates the spread of mosquito vectors, viruses and epidemics. There is thus a need to continually innovate and design sustainable solutions to deal with these environmental public health challenges. Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA) has established a new, highly automated facility that will allow researchers to eventually increase their production capacity of Wolbachia-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes by more than 10-fold, compared to its previous production facility.
This boost in capacity is critical for NEA’s plans to scale up Project Wolbachia – Singapore, in preparation for future deployment of the novel vector control technology. The new facility, located at Techplace II in Ang Mo Kio, was officially opened on 2 December 2019 by Dr. Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR).
NEA’s Project Wolbachia involves the release of male Wolbachia-Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to suppress the urban Aedes aegypti mosquito population. Aedes aegypti is the primary vector of dengue, chikungunya and Zika in Singapore. When the released male Wolbachia-Aedes aegypti mosquitoes mate with urban female Aedes aegyptimosquitoes that do not carry Wolbachia, the resulting eggs do not hatch. Over time, continued releases of male Wolbachia-Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are expected to bring about a gradual reduction in the urban Aedes aegypti mosquito population, and hence lower the risk of dengue transmission. Read more about this project here.
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