Mosquitoes help to beat disease

Australian scientists claim to have halted the spread of dengue fever after releasing specially bred mosquitoes. Dengue fever is a viral infection that causes flu-like symptoms and can be deadly. It is spread when a female Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquito bites someone who already has the virus. When it bites someone else it passes the dengue virus on to them. Researchers from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, bred mosquitoes that contain a common bacterium called Wolbachia, which lives inside the cells of insects. This bacteria stops the dengue virus from making copies of itself inside mosquitoes. Since the virus can’t replicate, the insects don’t give it to other humans. The specially bred mosquitoes were released in the Australian city of Townsville in 2014, where they mated with local…

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The Week Junior (Digital) - 1 Issue, No. 140

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