Assessing key safety concerns of a Wolbachia-based strategy to control dengue transmission by Aedes mosquitoes

Global stabilizing feedback law for a problem of biological control of mosquito-borne diseases

“…One verifies easily that closing (10) by u = y yields (6). The following result is a key step, see [21] for further details.…”

“…The international program Eliminate Dengue [5] is currently testing in the field this strategy, in several locations around the world: Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Colombia and Brazil. The release of infected mosquitoes with Wolbachia has the advantages of being safe for humans and the environment and inexpensive when compared to other control strategies [6].…”

“…Theorem 5: For any initial value in R 4 + , there exists a unique solution to the initial value problem associated to system (6). The latter is defined on [0, +∞), depends continuously on the initial conditions and takes on values in R 4 + .…”

Genetically modified insects as used in SIT should not require regulation

“…According to Gary Clark, at the USDA-ARS vector labs in Gainesville, Florida, the Key West outbreak in 2009 was the first evidence of local dengue transmission in the continental US outside of Texas in over 60 years. An infected person develops life-long immunity to a given strain (serotype) of the virus and soon loses the ability to act as an inoculation source; however, there is no cross-resistance to the three other serotypes, some of which are much more lethal than Dengue virus 1 (Popovici et al 2010).…”

High prevalence and lack of diversity of Wolbachia pipientis in Aedes albopictus populations from Northeast Brazil

“…Other control strategies include the utilisation of Wolbachia strains that shorten insect longevity (wMelPop) (Moreira et al 2009). Field trials to release Aedes aegypti infected with wMelPop Wolbachia strain are scheduled for 2011 in Australia (Popovici et al 2010).…”