Two foundations, the Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along the Brazilian, U.K. and U.S. governments, funded a plan that will release an army of infected mosquitoes to two large areas of Brazil and Columbia. The aim of the foundations is to stop the spread of the Zika virus, which can cause brain damage in infants and illness in adults.
This plan is supported by the World Health Organization (WHO). The mosquitoes will be infected by Wolbachia so it could eliminate the spread of Zika.
Researchers at Australia's Monash University have been working on this project for the past decade, according to The Guardian. The project was initially aimed to infect mosquitoes with Wolbachia in order to eliminate dengue. Now, this plan will be used for terminating the spread of Zika.
This plan has been tested in Australia, Vietnam and Indonesia, and most of them succeeded. With its success, scientists want to do the same thing in Columbia and Brazil. This technique was developed by Monash University in Australia. The group of researchers spent the last decade conducting field trials.
The first trials will take place in Bello in Columbia and Rio de Jeneiro in Brazil in 2017. Scientists will monitor the areas, Telegraph UK reported.
Zika has spread through 50 countries. It is believed it is the cause for nearly 2,200 cases of microcephaly, an abnormal smallness of the head of the babies, and with brain damage.
"If it works, it will be truly remarkable, but it has to still be working in ten years," Dr Philip McCall, a medical entomologist who studies mosquito control at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK, said.
Meanwhile, Professor Scott O'Neill, of Monash said they have a major problem with Zika virus that will be transmitted around the world. He added there are no effective treatment to control the disease transmitted by a mosquito.