ANAKALUSUGAN party-list Rep. Mike Defensor on Sunday urged the government to join a multinational effort—the World Mosquito Program—to deploy Wolbachia bacteria as a potential weapon against the dengue virus.
“Our sense is, the initiative holds great promise in helping to reduce the burden of dengue, which afflicts a large number of Filipino children every year,” he said.
“We are baffled that up to now, the Philippines has not had any participation whatsoever in the project,” he added.
The party-list lawmaker called on the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Health to push for the inclusion of the Philippines in the World Mosquito Program.
“At least 11 dengue-prone countries are already involved in theproject without counting Malaysia, which is carrying out its own effort,” he said.
“Local communities in Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico are already working with the WMP to help fight dengue outbreaks using Wolbachia,” he added.
Based on a three-year study published at the New England Journal of Medicine, human dengue infections dropped by 77 percent when Wolbachia bacteria was used to weaken the dengue virus in the Aedes aegypti mosquito population.
The weakening of the dengue virus in the mosquitoes diminished their ability to transmit the disease when they bite humans, the study showed.
It was conducted by the WMP at Monash University in Australia and Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia.
Wolbachia is a safe and naturally occurring bacterium found in more than 60 percent of insect species, including butterflies, bees, dragonflies and some species of mosquitoes, according to Singapore’s National Environment Agency.
The Philippines reeled from a dengue epidemic in 2019 with a record-high of 437,563 cases and 1,689 deaths.
From January 1 to April 17 this year, only 21,478 dengue cases and 80 deaths were reported countrywide, according to the DOH’s National Aedes-borne Viral Disease Prevention and Control Program.