Ready the bug spray.
More than 750 million "genetically-modified" mosquitoes will be released into the Florida Keys over the next two years, CNN has reported.
Against the objection of local residents and environmental advocacy groups, local officials have approved the engineered bugs — or "living insecticides," as they're called — to be released into the wild following a vote earlier this week, with the approval of the region’s Mosquito Control District.
The move comes amid the Florida Keys’ ongoing struggle with an outbreak of dengue, a mosquito-borne virus that often leads to dengue fever which at least 26 people have contracted this year to date.
In May, the Environment Protection Agency previously supported a pilot project to experiment with the genetically modified mosquito to see if it is a “viable alternative to spraying insecticides to control the Aedes aegypti,” a yellow fever mosquito capable of spreading various deadly diseases including chikungunya, Zika, and Mayaro.
The tested male mosquito, called OX5034, was altered to produce female offspring that would die before exceeding its larvae stage to reduce the pest population. (As experts point out, only female mosquitoes bite for blood in order to mature her eggs. Males feast on nectar, thus not making them carriers for diseases.)
The Florida Keys won’t be the modified mosquitoes’ only testing grounds. According to the US-owned, Britain-based company Oxitec, who developed the engineered bugs, has also been approved to unleash a batch of these mosquitoes into Harris County, Texas, beginning in 2021.
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