Argentina, fighting one of its worst outbreaks of dengue in recent years, is sterilizing mosquitoes using radiation that alters their DNA before releasing them into the wild.

The country has this year recorded over 41,000 cases of the disease transmitted by mosquitoes, far above the equivalent level in previous years of major outbreaks in 2020 and 2016, government data showed.

“This mosquito, due to the rise in temperature in our country and the world is able to spread more,” said National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA) biologist Marianela Garcia Alba. “Their population keeps on moving further south.”

To fight back, CNEA biologists have been experimenting with atomic sterilization since 2016. They are sterilizing 10,000 males per week and aim to increase that to 500,000. They expect to release the first batch of sterilized males in November.

“They are sterilized through ionizing energy and those sterile males are freed into the fields and when they meet with a wild female, their offspring are not viable,” said Garcia Alba. “This way, by the successive release of such males, we’ll be able to reduce the population of the vector mosquito.”

Similar techniques using the same radiation found in X-rays have been used for decades, helping global efforts to control other diseases such as chikungunya and zika.

Dengue is a viral disease transmitted when mosquitoes – mainly aedes aegypti but also others of the aedes genus – feed on the blood of an infected person. Eight to twelve days later, the mosquito can pass the disease on through its bites. 

The symptoms are fever and at least one of the following symptoms:

• Pain behind the eyes
• Headache
• Muscle and joint pain
• Nausea and vomiting
• Fatigue
• Blotches and itching of the skin
• Nose or gum bleeds

Dengue patients should seek immediate medical attention if they notice their symptoms reappearing or getting worse, or if new symptoms appear (such as breathing difficulties, abdominal pain, profuse bleeding from mucous membranes, irritability, drowsiness, or persistent vomiting).

—Reuters