{"id":11438,"date":"2026-02-11T18:52:05","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11438"},"modified":"2026-02-11T18:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:52:08","slug":"how-a-bacterial-infection-in-mosquitoes-could-cut-dengue-infections-in-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/02\/11\/how-a-bacterial-infection-in-mosquitoes-could-cut-dengue-infections-in-people\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Bacterial Infection in Mosquitoes Could Cut Dengue Infections in People"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.medpagetoday.com\/infectiousdisease\/publichealth\/119847?xid=nl_mpt_DHE_2026-02-11&amp;mh=07f73d99b2b546c079b0b5a2312d87b1&amp;zdee=gAAAAABm4uVVa0noffRIJqPd2rsKKgBm5ZURWXfuJljHxkA5SxaiDrFhpdNSLVuatrcndghIUJbdB8i3tZ00Sf5MYAfngC1RuyQP-n6FrYFzvROxn-4_blA%3D&amp;utm_source=Sailthru&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Daily%20Headlines%20Evening%20-%20Randomized%202026-02-11&amp;utm_term=NL_Daily_DHE_dual-gmail-definition\">MedPageToday<\/a> People living in areas with infected male mosquitoes saw their dengue risk drop 71%. Releasing male&nbsp;<em>Aedes aegypti<\/em>&nbsp;mosquitoes into the wild that were infected with the sterility-inducing bacteria&nbsp;<em>Wolbachia pipientis<\/em>&nbsp;cut dengue infection risk more than 70% in people, according to a cluster-randomized trial in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In urban locations where wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes were introduced, the percentage of residents who tested positive for dengue infection at 6 months or more after the intervention was 6% (354 of 5,722 tests) compared with 21% (1,519 of 7,080 tests) in urban locations where the infected male mosquitoes weren&#8217;t introduced, reported Lee Ching Ng, PhD, of the National Environment Agency in Singapore, and colleagues. The intervention&#8217;s protective efficacy after 3 months was 71%, reaching 72% at 6 months and settling at 71% 12 months and later, the researchers detailed in the&nbsp;<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nejm.org\/doi\/full\/10.1056\/NEJMoa2503304\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"New England Journal of Medicine, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">New England Journal of Medicine<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Release of sterile wolbachia-infected male&nbsp;<em>A. aegypti<\/em>&nbsp;mosquitoes may be a method for the control of dengue by reducing both vector populations and the risk of dengue virus infection,&#8221; Ng and colleagues wrote. &#8220;The technology can complement conventional approaches and vaccination to further reduce and potentially eliminate dengue transmission, along with possibly other&nbsp;<em>Aedes<\/em>-borne diseases.&#8221;<\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\"UjJMIRDhzd ihnelWv \"><!-- UjJMIRDhzd ihnelWv  --><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MedPageToday People living in areas with infected male mosquitoes saw their dengue risk drop 71%. Releasing male&nbsp;Aedes aegypti&nbsp;mosquitoes into the wild that were infected with the sterility-inducing bacteria&nbsp;Wolbachia pipientis&nbsp;cut dengue infection risk more than 70% in people, according to a cluster-randomized trial in Singapore. In urban locations where wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes were introduced, the percentage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dengue"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11439,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11438\/revisions\/11439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}