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Debug Fresno is back—and expanding!
Thursday, June 13, 2019
In November of 2018, our team was excited to announce that Debug Fresno 2018 utilized the sterile insect technique (SIT) to achieve a
greater than 95% reduction
in the number of biting female
Aedes aegypti
mosquitoes in our release neighborhoods, relative to similar non-release sites. When we observed the data from traps in our release areas, we noticed that of the relatively few wild, female
Ae. aegypti
mosquitoes that were collected, many were along the edges of our release neighborhoods. This suggested that they were migrating over from non-release areas. Mosquitoes do fly, after all! What we observed suggested that, in order to achieve the strongest reduction in
Ae. aegypti
possible, we would need to expand the footprint of our release areas. Now back for our third season, Debug Fresno 2019 will soon begin releases over one of the largest areas ever treated with a
Wolbachia
-based SIT, increasing our release sites by two and a half times our previous season.
Our goal is to show that by releasing sterile male mosquitoes over large areas, we can minimize the edge-effects that were observed in 2018 and achieve an even stronger reduction in the local
Ae. aegypti
population. SIT has been used since the 1930s, and has been shown to be most effective when implemented in wide-area programs. While last year’s results provide a strong validation of Debug’s technology and approach, our goal is to ultimately scale our operations to intervene in broad areas where
Ae. aegypti
mosquitoes are established and, in some cases, are a serious burden to human health. For Debug Fresno 2019, we aim to drive down the local population of
Ae. aegypti
mosquitoes similar to last year’s strong results but over a larger area—which will be an important advance in bringing SIT to scale.
We have taken big strides with our work in Fresno over the past two years in collaboration with our partners at
Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District
and
MosquitoMate
, and we are gathering important knowledge on how to operationalize SIT. But there is more to learn! We look forward to continuing this study in Fresno County and learning more about how to defeat the devastating and invasive
Ae. aegypti
mosquito.
Jacob Crawford, PhD, Sr. Scientist, Verily
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