Your dream of a world without mosquitoes is one step closer to coming true

There are roughly 3,500 species of mosquitoes. But only around 100 bite humans and as few as 30-40 are responsible for the transmission of the most deadly diseases that routinely hobble the world’s poorest and most disadvantaged people. Instead of battling the estimated 219 million annual malaria cases and the resulting 600,000 deaths that occur each year in a reactionary manner by treating the sick and spending millions on wide-spread preventative measures like long-lasting insecticide-treated nets (LLINs), we can eliminate the disease’s only vector directly, at the source.

Specific mosquito species can be made extinct using the same sterile insect technique (SIT) that has existed for over 50 years. It has been effectively used to eliminate species before for disease prevention in humans and animals. The technique has some subtle edges but basically reduces to releasing a large population of targeted, sterilized male insects into the wild that out-compete the wild male population for the (single) mating opportunity with their female counterparts. Repeated application of this technique can completely eliminate a wild insect population — sometimes in as little as one year.

Success in eliminating the species of mosquitoes that are the malaria vector could be followed by engineering the extinction of the vector species for dengue fever, which infects 50 to 390 million each year (causing 25,000 deaths) and also the mosquitoes that contribute to the 200,000 cases of yellow fever and the attendant 30,000 deaths they cause each year.

The short-term goals of a permanent mosquito eradication plan would prioritize and establish the species that need to be eliminated, the areas around the world where this elimination needs to be targeted first in order to succeed, and establish connections with suppliers who can provide enough sterile insects to implement these plans.

The medium-term goals would be to decimate the wild population of these species in large-scale pilot programs by releasing millions of sterile mosquitoes per day in infested areas. These marginal eradication efforts will bring with them marginal reduction in malaria and commensurate reduction in the pain, suffering, and economic/social destruction caused by this crippling disease.

The long-term goal would be the total eradication of these mosquito populations in the wild and the end of malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever. Captive lines of all these vector species should of course be kept in labs to study and as a hedge against the unlikely futures in which unintended ecological consequences prompt us to reintroduce the eradicated species.

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