When it comes to transmitting diseases among people, mosquitoes are unsurpassed in the economic and health burdens they impose. In the absence of efficient drugs or vaccines and given the need to reduce the use of insecticides, international efforts are required to develop and implement new, complementary control techniques for mosquito species. The nuclear sterile insect technique (SIT) is one such technique. To help advance its development for large scale use against mosquitoes, the IAEA last week hosted the second workshop of the Working Group to Finalize the Guidance Framework Document on SIT Applied to Mosquito-Borne Diseases.
Successfully deployed in over 40 countries, the SIT has been applied with the support of the IAEA, in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) against a variety of plant and livestock pests, including fruit flies, moths, tsetse flies and screwworm pests. In cooperation with partners, the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture is spearheading research and development leading to further applications of SIT against Aedes mosquitoes.
As part of these ongoing efforts, the IAEA and the World Health Organization (WHO) recently co-organized an expert meeting—through the Agency’s technical cooperation programme[1]—to provide technical guidance on how to plan, develop and assess the application of SIT on Aedes mosquitoes, which are responsible for the transmission of chikungunya, dengue fever, yellow fever and Zika, among other diseases.
“The IAEA is implementing one interregional and several regional and national projects to support 50 Member States from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean to implement SIT for mosquito control,” said Luis Carlos Longoria, Director of the Technical Cooperation Division for Latin America and the Caribbean. “The guidance framework will be a key resource for all of these nations interested in applying the SIT; it will add to their tool kit for the management of their mosquito populations.”