\n<\/p>\n
But when researchers first began exploring the use of Wolbachia, there was no guarantee the idea would take off.<\/p>\n
For years, the message from authorities has been to prevent mosquitoes from breeding, making the idea of deliberately releasing them into residential areas a potentially difficult one to sell, said Dr Chong.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only question is \u2013 if we release mosquitoes, can people accept it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Researchers were considering a number of technologies at the time, but Wolbachia caught their attention because it is naturally present in many insects.<\/p>\n
The bacterium is found in more than 60 per cent of insect species, including butterflies, Dr Chong said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe thought Wolbachia is something that we should explore, and hence we started the laboratory assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the project, male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia are released to mate with females in the wild.<\/p>\n
Their resulting eggs do not hatch, suppressing the mosquito population over time.<\/p>\n
Only males are released, and they do not bite \u2013 a fact that became central to explaining the project to residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo our key message, what we are educating people, is that male mosquitoes don\u2019t bite,\u201d Dr Chong said, adding that this was important in helping people accept the releases.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
WINNING PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE But when researchers first began exploring the use of Wolbachia, there was no guarantee the idea would take off. For years, the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":81678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--llDqNnA7--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2024\/10\/03\/img_4739.jpg?itok=mt-itm5g","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10631,1441,20431,10052,10629,781,3881,22,10628],"class_list":["post-81677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-dengue","tag-fight","tag-heartlands","tag-lab","tag-mosquitoes","tag-project","tag-releasing","tag-singapore","tag-wolbachia","wpcat-2-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/81678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}