There's No Genetic Engineering for Wolbachia Mosquitoes
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2 December 2023 13:00 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - THE Bali provisional government was supposed to release around 200 million mosquitoes carrying the Wolbachia bacteria on Monday, November 13, in an attempt to reduce dengue fever cases caused by the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. However, the Health Ministry-approved program had to be put on hold due to strong rejection from the locals.
Maxi Rein Rondonuwu, the Director-General of Disease Prevention and Control of the Health Ministry, said, the Wolbachia mosquitoes would also be released in five cities, namely, Bontang (East Kalimantan), Kupang (East Nusa Tenggara), Bandung (West Java), Semarang (Central Java) and West Jakarta, where there was little or no rejection from the residents.
“I observed that there was a lack of field coordination in Bali,” Maxi said adding that the Wolbachia program was a follow-up of a similar program in Yogyakarta that yielded a great success. A study by the Gadjah Mada University found that the mosquitoes helped reduce the number of dengue fever cases by 70 percent. “The mortality rate went down drastically,” Maxi explained to Tempo.
A season of transition like Indonesia is currently in, Maxi continued, caused an upward trend in the dengue fever mortality rate. The Health Ministry recorded 73,518 cases in 2021 including 705 deaths. In the following year, the number went up to 131,265 with 1,183 deaths. This year, as of October, there were 68,996 cases resulting in 498 deaths.
The interview with Maxi took place twice on November 3 and 24. In addition to the Wolbachia mosquitoes, Maxi also shed light on the monkeypox cases, which as per last Friday, November 24, stood at 59, up from 33 at the beginning of November, resulting in the death of a patient with comorbidities.
Is the release of the Wolbachia mosquitoes the only way to combat dengue fever (DBD)?
There are several ways to handle DBD, from eliminating (mosquito) nests, monitoring larvae as well as cross-sectoral and provincial coordination to innovation. We can use two innovations, namely introducing the Wolbachia mosquitoes and vaccination. Yogyakarta has been using the first method for more than eight years. The results were fantastic and quite significant. The Health Minister himself went to Yogya and saw how the (mosquito) eggs were produced. Then we mapped the regions outside Yogya with extremely high DBD incidence. We identified five cities: Semarang, Bontang, Kupang, West Jakarta and Bandung.
How was Bali finally chosen?
There was an aid offer from the World Mosquito Program (WMP) in collaboration with the Australian embassy. They chose Bali.
