Florida’s outer reef island chain this week became a test area for the release of genetically modified mosquitoes, local residents of this “variant” of mosquitoes are very disgusted, but resistance to ineffective.
The purpose of the trial is to see if the genetically modified mosquitoes can eliminate the need for insecticide spraying.
U.S. investment in the United Kingdom’s Oxitec Technologies, after a decade of research, will be in the initial 12-week trial period, the first 12,000 genetically modified eggs released into Ramrod Key, Cudjoe Key and Vaca Key some places, plus water, let them hatch, is expected to scatter in the local ecosystem next week.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency approved the experiment in May 2020, between 2021 and 2022, can release up to 750 million base change mosquitoes, to see the genetically modified mosquitoes, will not let the exotic species of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes disappear, no longer spread yellow fever, dengue fever, Zika virus (Zika virus).
Pregnant women infected with Zika virus will give birth to “small-headed” babies, neurodevelopmental disorders (microcephaly) leading to the development of head deformities. The disease spread from Brazil and French Polynesia to 34 countries around the world, including Texas and Florida, and became a global public health emergency in 2016.
Originally endemic in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Latin America and Southeast Asia, dengue fever also struck Key West, the southernmost point of Florida’s outer island chain, in 2009 and 2010, and Key Largo in 2019-20, with a small epidemic.
Oxitec regulations department director Nathan Rose said he expects the first three months of the “demonstration period” will produce 144,000 male mosquitoes, to see if they mate with local females, so that the total number of mosquitoes to reduce, and then carry out other test projects.
If the trial is successful, this year’s mosquito season will import up to 20 million male mosquitoes, the target is the female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Female mosquitoes bite people, sucking blood to feed eggs, but also spread disease. Male mosquitoes do not bite people, so do not spread disease.
Mosquitoes generally survive in the grass, the wild, the female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes but like to be near the human supply of its blood, so any small places inside or outside the house where water can accumulate, such as vases, bathroom drainage, backyard flower beds, construction sites, are its favorite.
Oxitec test of the base modified mosquitoes to kill female mosquitoes, in the female mosquitoes are still in the pupa stage, due to genetic mutation “organ” to start and die.
Florida Keys Environmental Coalition director Rye (Barry Wray) led the organization, although the membership is small, but the opposition is unusually loud; he said, “We have opposed this experiment for a long time. This is our home, and they’re forcing us to swallow it.”
Mara Daly, who lives in Key Largo, says the only way residents can legally resist today is to use insect repellent in their yards to get “this shit out of your yard.”
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