IAEA advises Bangladesh on testing nuclear technology to fight dengue mosquito

Experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency or IAEA and WHO have helped Bangladesh draw up a plan to test a nuclear technique to suppress mosquitos spreading dengue fever.

The IAEA and World Health Organization experts visited Dhaka from Aug 21 to 23 to help the country draw the plan after assessing the current dengue outbreak.

They met officials from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Science and Technology to discuss the possibility of using the Sterile Insect Technique, or SIT, according to the IAEA.

The SIT is a type of insect birth control that uses radiation to sterilise male insects, the agency said in a media release on Monday.

These are released in large numbers to mate with wild females, which then do not produce any offspring, reducing the target insect population over time.

The experts agreed with Bangladesh officials on a four-year workplan that includes the selection of a pilot site for the release of sterile male mosquitoes in 2021-22, and a schedule for IAEA technical assistance, in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), to train national staff, upgrade existing facilities to mass rear and sterilise the insects, and collect baseline data ahead of releases.

“The SIT has been successfully implemented against numerous insect pests of agricultural importance and is now being adapted for use against mosquitoes,” the release quoted Rafael Argiles Herrero, entomologist at the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, as saying.

“The method is very specific to the target species and has no impact on other living organisms or the environment,” he said, according to the release.   

The joint mission to Bangladesh is part of a newly established collaboration between the IAEA and WHO. The two organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding in July 2019 to intensify research and development on the use of SIT to fight disease-transmitting mosquito vectors.

“The collaboration aims to provide more evidence on the benefits of the SIT against human diseases transmitted by mosquitoes,” said WHO expert Rajpal Yadav. “Preliminary results from field trials using sterile male mosquitoes are very encouraging, but we need more data to show reduced disease incidence before large-scale implementation can be recommended.”

As part of the IAEA and WHO collaboration, a recent call was put out by the Special Programme for Research on Tropical Diseases (TDR/WHO) for public health partners to test the SIT technology against mosquitoes and carry out epidemiological evaluations.

Three multi-country proposals targeting main disease-transmitting mosquito vectors Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus will be selected for two-year pilot projects.