Genetically Modified Mosquitoes to End Dengue

The Philippine Department of Science and Technology is considering unleashing genetically modified mosquitoes to combat the dengue fever epidemic.

In a roundtable discussion attended by at least 60 Filipino scientists on Monday, scientists from the British based Oxford Insect Technologies (Oxitec) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) proposed their newest technology aimed at eradicating the Aedes aegypti species of dengue-carrying mosquito.

Dr. Luke Alphey, co-founder and chief scientist of Oxitec, Dr. Anthony James, a molecular biologist and a member of NAS, and Dr. David Brown-who are all part of a team working on the genetically engineered mosquitoes-are in the country on the invitation of the DOST.
The scientists claim to have created genetically modified Aedes aegypti male mosquitoes which, if released in the wild and mated with the female of the species, can produce flightless female offspring.

“Flightless mosquitoes cannot survive in the wild and are unable to mate even in the laboratory,” Alphey said.

The number of GM mosquitoes to be released should be 10 times the number of wild male mosquitoes in a certain area, he said.

It is only the female mosquito that can transmit to humans the dengue fever, the severe flu like illness that lasts for a week for most victims but can be lethal to others.

The result of the mating would be a crash in the mosquito population and the subsequent eradication of the mosquitoes bearing the dengue virus.

“This is the same thing we are trying to achieve when we are using insecticides,” James said.
James said eradicating the dengue carrying mosquitoes will not disrupt the ecological balance.
“In fact, there’s a place in the world where there used to be no mosquitoes until the colonizers showed up, and that is Hawaii,” he said.

Mosquitoes are also insignificant in the food chain as their predators prefer to feed on larger prey, said James.

(source: Yahoo News)

DoH sees hope in 'tawa-tawa' as dengue cure

MANILA, Philippines — Department of Health (DoH) Secretary Enrique T. Ona announced Friday that preliminary laboratory testing of the plant “tawa-tawa” (scientific name: euphorbia hirta) suggests that it may have “some effect” in treating dengue patients.

While Ona said these tests remain inconclusive, the Department of Science and Technology (DoST) will continue its research on the active ingredient in the plant that appears to be effective in beating the virus.

“It looks like they (DoST scientists) have already isolated the active ingredient in the plant and it appears that it really has some effect,” Ona told the press during a forum organized by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) in Quezon City.

Believers in herbal medication have long claimed that tawa-tawa is effective in curing dengue patients but there had been no formal scientific research to confirm it.

Dengue survivors who claim they were cured by the plant professed that their blood platelets count increased after drinking water from the boiled plant.

Ona said it is better to have a research-backed method of using the plant rather than just using it as one would use any tea – boiling the leaves and drinking the juice.

“It is scientific to find the component, the active ingredients... hopefully, they will be able to isolate it and come up with a concentrated form,” he said.

Ona said he has not heard of any side-effects from drinking the water from the boiled plant and that doing so serves well for rehydrating a dengue patient.

The website “factoidz.com” describes tawa-tawa as a weed with numerous flowers measuring between 5 and 8 centimeters each, with sepals and petals that are obovate-oblong, yellowish green and covered with large, reddish-brown blotches.

Herbalists recommend that the plant – complete with its flowers, leaves, stem and roots – be boiled and the juice given to a patient at a dose of one cup every hour to have a positive effect in 24 hours.

Doctors noted that severe dengue cases involve dehydration, hemorrhage, and bleeding of the nose, ears and gums. This condition leads to anemia and organ failure.

4-S strategy

Meanwhile, Department of Education (DepEd) Undersecretary Yolanda Quijano said they are helping the DoH in disseminating awareness and information about dengue by applying the 4-S strategy of the agency: The 4-S strategy includes Search and Destroy, Self-protection, Seek early treatment, and Say no to indiscriminate fogging.

She said parents, teachers and principals in the following areas have embarked on activities that would combat dengue and prevent its rise: the cities of Quezon, Valenzuela, Caloocan, Manila, and Pasig in Metro Manila and the provinces of Ilocos Sur, La Union and Benguet, among others.

“We also discussed what to do or where to go if ever there is no doctor in their areas and also what students can do to avoid dengue,” she said.

In Pangasinan, Mayor Julier Resuello of San Carlos City called for a massive blood donation event on September 6 at the city’s gymnasium to collect enough supply for dengue patoients.

Those qualified to donate are people aged 18 to 65, weighing at least 50 kg. or 110 lbs. with hemoglobin level of 125 g/l (minimal level), blood pressure range of 90-180/mm/Hg (systolic), 60-100 mm/Hg (diastolic).

In Imus, Cavite, dengue cases are increasing but local health authorities have told Mayor Homer T. Saquilayan that it has not reached an alarming state.

In response, Saquilayan ordered an intensified anti-dengue campaign with a weekly clean-up drive in barangays (villages), which started Friday in Malagasang II-A and II-G.

Dr. Noralyn V. del Mundo, municipal health officer, confirmed that out of 156 reported cases of dengue in Imus over the past 33 weeks, there had been one fatality.

In Navotas City, the number of dengue cases decreased having listed only 247 patients to date this year as compared with the 840 cases in the same period last year.

Dra. Liberty Domingo, health officer said Navotas ranked second in terms of the lowest rise in dengue incidence among the 17 areas in Metro Manila.

Domingo owed this to the “aggressive intensified drive against dengue,” spearheaded by Mayor John Reynald Tiangco and the City Health Office. (With reports from Liezle Basa Iñigo, Anthony Giron, Ed Mahilum and MB Research)

Source : Manila Bulletin

Experts find way to make mosquitoes dengue-free

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Health (DOH) yesterday raised an alert over a supposed hyperactive strain of dengue monitored in the Ilocos region.

The dengue strain, health officials said, hits usually dark-skinned people, particularly children.?Health Secretary Enrique Ona said the Research Institute of Tropical Medicine (RITM) has been conducting tests on blood samples of four dengue strains to determine under which type the new strain can be classified.?

“For the moment we are calling it an Ilocano strain,” Ona told a news forum in Quezon City.

Ona noted reports that the hyperactive strain of dengue targets dark-skinned people and the initial sign of nose bleeding, apart from fever, would manifest in an affected individual.

Ona said the resurgence of the new strain was discovered by RITM, which is also developing a new anti-dengue vaccine.

Dr. Rose Capeding, chief of the dengue research group of the RITM, said that since dengue is endemic in the Philippines they have already raised an alert of the possible outbreak of the disease in certain parts of the country.

At the same time, Capeding added, the RITM is developing a vaccine now in its clinical test stage.?

Capeding said they are still in the process of determining if there is a fifth strain, but so far the type 3 and 4 strains are the most prevalent.?

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Experts find way to make mosquitoes dengue-free

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Injecting a bacteria into mosquitoes can block them from transmitting the dengue virus and help control the spread of a disease that kills 20,000 annually in more than 100 countries, scientists said.

In two papers published in the journal Nature on Thursday, researchers in Australia showed how female mosquitoes infected with the Wolbachia bacteria passed the bug easily to their offspring, making them all dengue-free.

They said such infected mosquitoes should be released into the wild, so that the spread of dengue to people may be reduced.

"The main feature we saw was their ability to reduce dengue transmission," said Professor Scott O'Neill, lead author and science faculty dean at Monash University. "It almost completely abolished dengue virus in the body of the mosquito."

In their experiment, O'Neill and colleagues injected the bacteria into more than 2,500 embryos of so-called Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that can spread dengue fever. After they hatched, they were treated to blood meals laced with the dengue virus, and none picked up the virus.

"The (Wolbachia) bacteria doesn't spread environmentally, it gets passed on from mother to children through the eggs," O'Neill told Reuters by telephone.

"When an infected male mates with an uninfected female, all her eggs die. That gives an indirect benefit to the females with Wolbachia because when they mate with infected males, their eggs hatch normally ... all their eggs have Wolbachia in them so Wolbachia gets more and more common with every generation."

O'Neill said there were two theories to explain why the Wolbachia was able to block the uptake of dengue.

One, that the Wolbachia boosts the mosquito's immune system and protects it from viruses like dengue. Two, the Wolbachia competes with dengue for food inside the mosquito, making it harder for the dengue virus to replicate.

Infecting wild populations

More than 50 million people in over 100 countries fall sick and 20,000 die each year from dengue fever. There is no vaccine or specific treatment for the disease.

The only way of prevention is to control mosquito populations through eliminating breeding sites and insecticides.

O'Neill's team released nearly 299,000 infected mosquitoes in January at more than 370 sites in northeastern Australia, and the bacteria spread into the wild mosquito population successfully, with their offspring also infected over a three-month period.

The team is seeking approval to release such infected mosquitoes into dengue-endemic sites in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Brazil to see if it would reduce rates of dengue transmission in people.

"It is an alternative strategy for dengue control which could be low-cost and sustainable and suitable for deployment in large urban cities in developing world," O'Neill said.

But he added: "With any control (measure) over time, we might expect them to become less effective, like insecticides.

"We don't know how long that might take to occur. If it provides effective control for 20-30 years, that is still a very good step forward for dengue control."

(source: Manila Bulletin)

Authorities Move to Contain Dengue

MANILA, Philippines — Local government units and other government agencies around the country have beefed up efforts, including a massive information drive, in an effort to contain dengue cases.

In Muntinlupa, local health officials inspected Wednesday swimming pools in an exclusive subdivision that may become being breeding grounds of dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

This as the number of dengue cases in Muntinlupa rose by 35 to 293 from 258 last week, according to Dr. Edilinda Patac, city health officer. Five deaths were reported.

The 293 dengue cases from January to August this year in Muntinlupa is 396 percent higher compared to the 59 total cases last year.

While there is no dengue outbreak declared in Muntinlupa, officials are not taking risks and have implemented several measures to prevent the further spread of the disease.

Community clean-ups started on Wednesday with the aim of destroying breeding grounds of mosquitoes.

In Country Homes Subdivision in Putatan, workers cut grass, cleaned the surroundings and removed trash. Larviciding, fogging and space spraying will also be done in barangays.

The city government also launched a bloodletting drive and asked employees to donate blood for dengue victims. The aim is to collect about 1,000 bags of blood.

The City Health Office, upon the orders of Mayor Aldrin San Pedro, earlier activated dengue fast lanes in all barangay health centers to prioritize those who show symptoms of dengue such as fever.

In addition, the city government will provide free CBC and platelet count tests for all indigent patients and Philhealth-sponsored families.

Free medicine and oral rehydrating solutions will also be given to indigent patients.

Patac said they will request the Department of Health for Olyset, or permethrin-treated nets, that is designed to kill mosquitoes. The nets will be installed on classroom windows in public schools, she said.

In Quezon City, Dr. Antonietta Innumerable, head of the health department, said with the huge number of dengue cases resulting in 29 deaths this year has prompted her department to strengthen anti-dengue efforts with a massive information drive especially in the areas now considered as dengue hotspots.

She noted that the city government has intensified its emergency mosquito control with the distribution of larvae traps to schools and various barangays and spraying and preventive fogging on known dengue hotspots in the city.

Innumerable reminded the public to maintain clean households and healthy surroundings as the disease usually peaks from July to September with the mosquito eggs being left on the soil and plant leaves after the lean dengue months.

With confined and admitted dengue patients on the rise in public hospitals, Mayor Herbert Bautista has turned over 79 folding beds and ten electric fans for the use at the Quirino Memorial Medical Center (QMMC) in Project 4.

Tadeo Palma, secretary to the mayor, said that barangay officials were now tasked to personally visit every house in the dengue-prone areas of the city and distribute leaflets to complement the vast information drive of the city health department personnel.

Barangays Bagbag, San Bartolome and Commonwealth are the Quezon City areas with the most number of dengue cases with 227, 211 and 187 respectively.

However, Barangay Batasan hills with 178 dengue cases registered four deaths due to dengue the largest number in all of the city’s 142 barangays.

Palma noted that the recorded rise in dengue cases in the city may be also traced to the more efficient reporting of dengue cases by public hospital representatives.

In the case of the Quirino Medical Memorial Center, Palma said that the closure of the Eulogio “Amang’’ Rodrguez Hospital in Marikina City led the increase in the number of dengue patients in the hospital as residents from the city and other neighboring cities and towns of Rizal afflicted with the disease brought them to the Quezon City hospital.

With the influx of patients from other cities and towns, three to four dengue patients being treated at the Quirino Medical Memorial Center are now sharing one bed.

At the district level, Barangay Bahay Toro in the city’s first district and Barangay Matandang Balara and Pansol are considered to be dengue hotspots.

The city’s second district with a population of 1.8 million which is more than 50 percent of the city’s entire population has long been considered a dengue hotspot.

Quezon City has a population of 2.68 million compared to Manila and Makati City with populations of 1.7 million and 500, 000 respectively.


PhilHealth package

Following the surge in dengue cases in the country, the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) announced that it is now including dengue cases in its new case rate packages.

In a statement, Dr. Rey B. Aquino, president and CEO of PhilHealth, said

The case rate system will be implemented in Dengue I cases belonging to Grades 1 and 2 worth P8,000 and Dengue II cases belonging to Grades 3 and 4 worth P16,000.

These new rates are applicable for all types of members, Aquino said. “These include those who are employed in the private and government sectors, the lifetime members, the overseas workers, the individually paying members and the sponsored program members,” he added.

In a related development, a migrant advocate group has started mobilizing relatives of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) to donate blood.

Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator John Monterona said they have been receiving request for assistance from at least four Middle East-based OFWs to find blood donors after their children were infected with dengue.

“Two of the OFW’s children are from Bulacan province, while the others in Metro Manila,” Monterona noted.

“As a reply to the request by the OFWs whose children have been infected with dengue and to help other dengue victims, too, we are urging our fellow OFWs to convince their families and relatives in the Philippines to donate blood and proceed to the nearest Philippine National Red Cross office,” he said.

Aside from blood donation, the Migrante coordinator also urged relatives of OFWs to help in the information drive in reducing the risk of dengue in their communities.

He also asked the government allocate more fund for its health services to assist indigent families especially in times of outbreaks of diseases like dengue.

Meanwhile, a massive information campaign against the dengue had been redoubled in the different places of the five provinces and six cities in Northeastern Mindanao (Caraga region).

Aside from the Department of Health (DoH-Caraga), Department of Education (DepEd-13), line agencies of the government and media outlets, personnel from the different health offices and rural health units, local government units (LGU’s), and non-government organizations had contributed respective resources to prevent and control dengue.

In the no non-sense information drive, the DoH advises the general public to cover water drums, and water pails at all times to prevent mosquitoes from breeding, always replace water in flower vases, clean all water containers once a week, scrub the sides well to remove eggs of mosquitoes sticking to the sides, clean gutter of leaves and debris to that rain water will not collect as breeding places of mosquitoes, old tires used as roof support should be punctured or cut to avoid accumulation of water, collect and dispose all unusable tin cans, bottles and other items that can collect and hold water, and above all practice to clean all the surroundings of your respective residence.

The DoH advises all persons to immediately seek consultation in hospitals or clinics if they feel the following: sudden onset of high fever which may last 2 to 7 days, joint and muscle pain and pain behind the eyes, skin rashes or red tiny spots on the skin called petechiae, nose bleeding when fever starts to subside, abdominal pain, vomiting of coffee-colored matter and dark-colored stools.

“Everybody, especially parents in their respective homes must help to prevent the spread of the dengue disease,” said Region XIII DoH Regional Director Leonita P. Gorgolon.

In the latest tally received from the different places in the Caraga region, one case of death was reported in Sibagat town, in Agusan del Sur, and three in Surigao City. Fatality rate is only 0.65% for the whole region, reported DoH. (From reports by Sarah Hilomen-Velasco, Jonathan Hicap, Chito Chavez, Samuel P. Medenilla and Mike Crismundo)

DILG: Nationwide Cleanup Drive vs Dengue

Ipinagutos na ni Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Sec. Jesse Robredo ang paglunsad ng cleanup drive sa buong bansa, sa harap ng tumataas na kaso ng dengue.

Sa ipinalabas na direktiba, inaatasan ng kalihim ang mga local chief executives, mula sa gobernador hanggang mga barangay chairman na makipag-ugnayan sa kani-kanilang mga local health officials para magsagawa ng operasyon na mapuksa ang mga dengue-carrying mosquitoes.

Una rito, iniulat ng Department of Health (DoH) na umakyat na sa kabuuang 38,876 ang kaso ng mga nagkakasakit ng dengue sa buong bansa simula Enero hanggang Hulyo ngayong taon.

Source: Bombo Radyo