BOSTON – New technology to control the mosquito population may soon be used on a trial basis in Massachusetts.
The program would expose male mosquitoes to what is essentially a sexually transmitted disease.
“We would come to your backyard, if you had a mosquito problem, and we would bring a tube of about 1,000 mosquitoes and we'd open that tube in your backyard,” Stephen Dobson from Mosquitomate told Boston 25 News.
The mosquitos would be contaminated with the bacterium wolbachia.
“They're going to seek out and find all the female mosquitoes in your backyard, mate with them and effectively sterilize them,” Dobson said.
A mosquito expert told Boston 25 News that humans and other mammals have nothing to fear from this bug.
“Many insects in the wild already are infected with this type of bacteria,” Anand Ray from the University of California-Riverside said.
The Environmental Protection Agency just gave the go-ahead for Mosquitomate to be deployed next summer in 20 states, including all six New England states.
The goal is not so much to dampen the annoyance associated with mosquitoes, but to slow the spread of disease.
Mosquitomate is not a one-time fix.
“You don't just release these mosquitoes once and then stop, you actually repeat that every week,” Dobson said.
But experts say it could be an important step forward in controlling what has become more than just a pest.
“They have become a real threat in some parts of the world where they didn't used to be. Because of globalization and the emergence of new types of diseases,” Ray said.
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