Caribbean & Central America - February 2024

Two private companies said in December that they were working together to release mosquitoes across the Caribbean that have been bred with a bacterium that attacks the dengue virus.

Dengue is a debilitating viral disease found in tropical regions, transmitted by mosquitoes. It causes sudden fever and acute pains in the joints. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2000-2019 there was a ten-fold increase in reported annual cases worldwide, from 500,000 to 5.2m. It is estimated that there were 4m dengue cases in the Caribbean and Latin America last year.

The companies involved in the new project are Barbados-registered Orbit Services Partners and Verily, a US-based health technology firm. According to Orbit chairman Anthony Da Silva, both firms have been meeting government officials with the hope of gaining the necessary medical approvals and launching the project during 2024.

Target countries include Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts & Nevis, St Maarten, St Martin, Suriname, Dominican Republic, and Haiti. The project involves breeding mosquitoes in laboratories with the Wolbachia bacteria. They are then released to the wild, where they breed further and multiply. The Wolbachia bacteria plays a key role since it blocks the dengue virus from reproducing inside the stomach of a mosquito.