The technology to eradicate mosquito-borne disease exists
worksinprogress.co213 points by benbreen a day ago
213 points by benbreen a day ago
Reminds me of the novel Everything is Tuberculosis, which explores the idea that we have a cure for the leading cause of death from infectious disease and "that the disease is no longer primarily caused by the bacteria, but instead by human choices."
having spent the summer in Singapore I can confirm its a delight to enjoy hot weather's outdoor activities without any mosquito to be found
The proposal is only to eliminate the disease born mosquitoes, letting the other mosquitoes take over. So if your polity has eliminated mosquitoes it's likely using chemicals rather than a more environmentally sound choice.
It's not that it eliminated mosquitoes entirely but rather that it effectively eliminated mosquitoes in the genus Aedes.
These are some of the most problematic/disease causing of the mosquitoes but also notably mosquitoes in the Aedes genus are essentially the only mosquitoes that are "hunting" during the day. All the other mosquitoes operate almost exclusively in the evening and at nighttime.
So by eliminating these mosquitoes a major disease vector is eliminated but at the same time it completely eliminates mosquitoes during the day (i.e. the main time when you are out and about trying to enjoy the summer).
Most mosquitoes are not the blood-sucking kind. It is possible to replace the blood-suckers with other species which still mostly fill the appropriate niches, like the birds' food chains, etc.
TLDR for this link is that they release male mosquitoes carrying a bacteria called Wolbachia. So this only affects the one species of mosquito they're targeting: Aedes aegypti.
The article contains the following sentence: "In a randomized trial in Singapore, releases of Wolbachia-infected males cut mosquito populations by 85 percent compared to control areas and dengue infections by roughly 70 percent."
There are different things you can do to mosquitos with different techniques. The article discusses several different techniques. Some eliminate disease-spreading mosquitos, some eliminate the mosquitos. In Singapore, the latter was tried out. It is not the case that Singapore used chemicals.
How many simultaneous mosquitos in Singapore?
lets say on the order of 1 billion, and let's assume the effectivity doesn't change when considering the 30% unaffected population
it would need to be applied to the surviving 30% repeatedly:
0.3 ^ N = 1 / 1B
so N = log(1B)/log(10/3) = ~17.2 times.
I predict nature protects itself with diversity: some of the male and female wild type will have natural aversion from, attraction to or neutral stance the modified Wolbachia carriers.
I predicted that those mosquito family lines that happen to be more Wolbachia-carrier averse become enriched over time.
There is an energetic cost to maintaining a parasitic lifeform, and that energetic term will always favor immunity against the parasite.
The article discussed alternative methods that have succeeded in being deployed:
> The approach has succeeded at the scale of cities. In a randomized trial in Singapore, releases of Wolbachia-infected males cut mosquito populations by 85 percent compared to control areas and dengue infections by roughly 70 percent.
(mosquitos infected with Wolbachia are both more resistant to diseases, and fail to reproduce in the case of infected male x uninfected female)
Do they achieve it by regularly spraying poison on the air like they do in Malaysia? Feels like a pyrrhic victory to me. I know they were trialing genetic modification but I don't know how successful that was and I'm certain it's not the only thing they're doing.
I humbly propose you simply read the article
I did read the article, actually. It says they did a randomized trial of wolbachia infected mosquities, presumably on a small area, while the person I was replying to was implying that all mosquitos in Singapore have been eradicated. So presumably they're also using other methods like DDT spraying.
I've had Dengue fever, it's no joke, this is great news.
I'm super prone to getting bitten so having to apply insect repellent and restrict myself to wearing certain clothes is such a pain.
My family lives in a country aboard where malaria isn't rare, and I and my sisters got malaria when we were visiting that place. I'm also very happy to hear about these new technologies and i really cant wait for them to be deployed
No chance this is bungled and causes problems worse than the ones we are hoping to fix.
Does anyone know if this is possible to DIY? I live in an area where dengue is endemic on a substantial land area and would be interested.
Mosquito dunks kill larvae. It's used as a mosquito population control in warmer areas. Me and a few neighbors used it this year with good results.
Get a 5 gallon bucket, add water/grass/leaves/dunk and let it sit for a few weeks. Every few weeks add more dunks. Put a stick in there so small animals don't get stuck when trying to get a drink.
Some horse barns put little fishes in the drinking water troughs. The fish eat the larvae. The horses ignore the fish.
They just started doing this in Florida to deal with dengue cases this year. Mosquito fish!
I've read this is safe for animals and bees.
Yes, the bacteria target mosquito larve.
Though:
- It won't stop breeding in other standing water
- Depending on where you live, it could decimate the food source of other animals
- It attacks all mosquito's not just blood suckers
- I understand that there are conflicting reports on its effects on amphibians. I'm not sure how reliable the negative reviews are, or if it is "big citronella" sourced scare, but you may want to be cautious of which water sources you use them in.
Before your local government rolls on you for bio-terrorism you should probably look into other options.
These are such a cool, fun, wonderful idea right up until you try to put them anywhere that shares space with a human eyeball.
Yeah that's the main drawback for these, very dangerous. I believe there are several DIY projects but I wouldn't trust them.
[1]. https://github.com/Ildaron/Laser_control [2]. https://github.com/tanakasan3/mosquito-laser
Positioning the death ray's UI so you have to stand in front of the death ray to use it is a design choice worthy of ACME.
I’m not sure this is a real product.
You are correct.
> This item is currently available for pre-order. Orders will be shipped within 120 calendar days after payment confirmation.
I believe it is. I have seen research for this on this site since at least 2015. The technology exists it's probably legit.
“A mosquito laser is a proposed device[…]”
[...] the device was still under development as of 2017.
It's been nine years since that blurb was updated supposedly.
The company linked supposedly will start shipping the first units this month.
https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/jimwong-38623042/world...
I did some research over the summer on Anopheles gambiae, a mosquito that spreads malaria, and I was stunned to learn how many diseases are spread by mosquitoes. There are tons of viruses (yellow fever, dengue, West Nile), protozoa (like malaria), and even parasitic worms (lymphatic filariasis--the pictures of this are awful). Hundreds of millions of people are infected with these diseases every year, and I'm a bit shocked of how ignorant I was to this. Malaria eradication has stalled over the last decade [0], and I hope that we can resume it.
[0] https://anopheles-genomic-surveillance.github.io/home.html
The technology to eradicate Aedes mosquitoes exists. Time to use it ruthlessly. There's no good reason not to do it and at least a million reasons per year to do it.
The tools available for these biological operations are fascinating. OP's article links this other one, which explains everything that can be done in practice with today's tech and reads like science fiction : https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-ultra-selfish-gene/
If the various regulatory bodies are disclaiming jurisdiction over the matter, then what is preventing these companies from proceeding without their blessing?
The article features multiple examples of the EPA actively regulating in the area, including allowing some deployments to proceed with their blessing.
The avalanche of lawsuits that every NGO that hadn't been paid off would file within minutes that'd extract the same toll in terms of years, plus potentially even higher legal fees.
I guess we have the capability to change a lot (from the technology we posess), but what would be the consequences of such impact on the rest of the ecosystem?
I mean, we eliminated smallpox viruses, and the impact was that humans no longer die from smallpox. We have almost eliminated polio, which has the impact that nobody needs an iron lung any more. We have massively reduced the incidence of a whole range of other pathogens. Are you concerned about that, too?
I'd be much more concerned about the changes humans do to our ecosystems that we know cause harm, but aren't stopping (like filling the atmosphere with CO2 and other greenhouse gases) than about changes that would, almost certainly, reduce harm and have only extremely unlikely and hypothetical risks.
Well, one notable difference between your examples of eliminated pathogens is that there is a food chain built on top of mosquitos. There are plenty of animals that eat both mosquito larvae (ex: tadpoles, some fish) and adults (ex: bats, dragonflies). I don't believe there is a similar food chain built on top of viruses.
I agree that many of the risks are hypothetical, but I disagree that we can simply dismiss them. Taking a decent amount of time to understand cause and effect on ecosystems seems like a perfectly prudent thing to me.
Im curious about the food chain part, what happens to individual viruses over time, do they ‘die’ or degrade somehow?
Viruses are bundle of DNA with an attitude. Lacking any active metabolism, they just denature with time.
While they don't age like living organisms, their outer protein coating wears away due to temperature and UV light, so like you said they sort of "degrade".
We wouldn't have to destroy all mosquitos, though. Only a few species that are carriers of human pathogens. Once they are gone, other, benign mosquitos will occupy their spot, and will be eaten by the same animals as before.
Such a vague blanket statement sounds like an article of faith and not an actual informed opinion about the specific species of mosquitos, the animals that eat them, and the fungibility of their food sources. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
The mosquito species in question is native to northern Africa, and is an invasive species pretty much everywhere else in the world, having only arrived 300-400 years ago.
"Invasive" is a made-up human concept that has pretty much no bearing on local dependence after a couple hundred years.
> Are you concerned about that, too?
Kind of, because every time you stomp out one of Mother Nature's ways to keep the human population in check, you contribute to letting the population exceed carrying capacity, which leads to things like:
> changes humans do to our ecosystems that we know cause harm, but aren't stopping
We have a lot of experience in what happens when mosquito species are removed!
Mostly because the rich world eradicated a lot of them to stop malaria.
Of course, once we were safe we told the rest of the world they had to live (and die) with with malaria, because we had discovered environmentalism.
few people know that mosquitoes are also pollinators for some plants
In this case not significant since we're talking about eradicating an invasive species that isn't the majority population.
Basically 0, there are only a few species of mosquito that carry disease. Other species fulfill all other ecological roles without spreading horrible diseases.
Famous last words... (Edit typo:) Till we find out when its too late that they had a genuine purpose in a very specific ecosystem after we've eradicated them?
Growing up my sister got dengue, so I hate mosquitoes, she was fine, I know dengue was no joke, but I always worry we make too many assumptions as humans, only to be proven wrong by nature somehow.
Do you have the same level of concern for all other recently-extinct species, widespread habitat loss, and overall large decline in insect biomass?
Or do you reserve most of your concern for just the few species of human disease-carrying mosquito?
Kind of a genuine question, because I've observed over the years people popping in to this topic to exclaim deep concern for the potential ecological impacts of intentionally extincting a couple of species -- that most biologists reportedly agree aren't keystone species. Meanwhile, species loss continues to occur globally for a variety of reasons and yet it's still really difficult to get the average person to care very much about that.
The psychology here is peculiar and I don't understand it.
I'm much more puzzled by the many retorts to people asking about the unforeseen consequences of eradicating a whole species given how little we know about ecosystems.
Many such comments are very dumb, asking 'and how do you feel about viruses, screwworms, etc.?', but since you say this is a genuine question: mosquitoes are numerous and we know that they represent a source of food for many species (bats, birds, other insects). As far as I know, there is genuine debate among scientists about the role that mosquitoes play in their ecosystems. Everyone here has seen species of animals and plants eradicated and then being reintroduced or replaced, when we realise what role they were playing.
Again, assuming you're asking in good faith: you're asking why these commenters are so concerned while humanity is eradicating species all the time anyway: these are not the same populations... I'd wager there is a big overlap between those wondering about consequences and those taking action for the planet (not eating animal products, not flying, etc.). Similarly, I'd wager there's overlap between those posting such illogical retorts, and those eating animals at every meal and driving their car daily.
I see the same ridiculous retorts in HN debates about the condition of animals.
Okay, but we aren't talking about the eradication of all mosquitos. Approximately 10% of known mosquito species are potential carriers of human disease (https://entomologytoday.org/2022/07/26/less-than-10-percent-...), and discussions about eradication efforts generally revolve around just the Anopheles genus.
There's an excellent book on the impact of the mosquito on humanity, and a brief overview of some of that subject here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/08/05/how-mosquitoes.... These species of mosquito are and have been one of the most significant threats to human health for all of our existence.
I don't think argument-from-ignorance should be more convincing here than it would be on any other subject. There is some debate among researchers, sure, but published biologists have been making arguments in favor of eradication for over 20 years (https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/25/opinion/a-bug-s-death.htm...). If someone is being intellectually honest in objecting to this on the grounds of the fragility of ecosystems, then they must also be an equally loud voice against the use and manufacture of glyphosate. That one chemical alone is already having a far greater impact on insect populations, yet you can buy it at your local hardware stores.
So yeah, I genuinely don't understand the reasoning here. It feels like a dumber version of the trolley problem, where a perceived inaction that has far larger negative consequences is preferable to an action with more limited ones -- except in this case, it's not even right to describe our current impacts on ecosystems as "inaction".
I suspect that if an article were published tomorrow that found that, through some previously-unknown mechanism, the expected rise in global temperatures over the next 10 years would have a side-effect of killing all mosquito populations, that article wouldn't even make the front page of HN. Nobody much would care, aside from those few recurring voices mourning our future.
More cynically, I also suspect that since the worst impacts on human health are occurring in tropical populations, westerners find it much easier to argue in favor of protecting this particular pest.
Do you think animals pick their food source based on whether humans have taxonomized them under a similar heading, like "mosquito?"
Would an alien species contemplating the eradication of wheat be correct to think "that won't hurt Homo sapiens much, wheat makes up <1% of our taxonomic category 'things that grow in dirt!'?
Again: the effect you're referring to here, food chain collapse, is already occurring, but on much larger and more indiscriminate scales. Meanwhile, there is scant real evidence that Anopheles is a critical component of the food chain. Here's the most fair treatment on the subject that I could find: https://archive.ph/h12qU
I've been following this subject since at least Olivia Judson's article was published back in 2003. Over the last 23 years, to the best of my knowledge, nobody has yet made a strong case that Anopheles was a necessary part of the ecosystem. If your alien species were unable to identify wheat as an important food source, one would question how they managed to figure out interstellar travel.
The most vocal arguments against are all of the kind we're seeing here: "we don't know what might happen" (a statement of the unintended consequences of science meddling with nature that goes back in fiction to at least Mary Shelley), "we should assume they're necessary" (and yet all other necessary critters seem to be optional), "something needs them, we just don't know what" (in 23 years, biologists have so far identified a single spider that maybe or maybe not depends on them).
And these are the arguments that condemn a million people a year to death.
I would be easily swayed by evidence of large-scale ecosystem destabilization if Anopheles were eradicated. To date, not only is there no such evidence, but there is some evidence to the contrary (species of mosquito have been introduced to island habitats where they went on to have significant effects on local animal populations).
Food chain collapse happening elsewhere is a reason not to risk creating more of it. It makes ecosystems more fragile, not less.
> If your alien species were unable to identify wheat as an important food source, one would question how they managed to figure out interstellar travel.
Per your prior point: we are causing food chain collapse all over the globe. We are not an alien species with a good track record on this.
> "we don't know what might happen" (a statement of the unintended consequences of science meddling with nature that goes back in fiction to at least Mary Shelley)
Per your prior point: the unintended consequences of science meddling with nature also goes back in reality to the widespread food chain collapse that our science is already unintentionally causing all over the globe.
The following two arguments are not ones that I've made, and aren't necessary to justify extreme caution.
> And these are the arguments that condemn a million people a year to death.
Obviously the people arguing against you believe there's a chance that altering course would be far, far worse than this already-not-good outcome.
> I would be easily swayed by evidence of large-scale ecosystem destabilization if Anopheles were eradicated. To date, not only is there no such evidence, but there is some evidence to the contrary (species of mosquito have been introduced to island habitats where they went on to have significant effects on local animal populations).
Yes I'm in the same boat as you. But note that this is a fundamentally different position than "other things eat things that humans call 'mosquitos' so it should be fine."