Singapore rears moquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria to combat dengue | Hacker News Reader

Singapore rears moquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria to combat dengue

reuters.com

87 pointselfgoh35 comments

I've had dengue fever. There are a few different strains and I had one of the milder ones but it was still enough to put me in the hospital for dehydration as an otherwise healthy 20yo.

In Thai it's known as hemorrhagic fever, but unlike in English, where "hemorrhagic" is a technical term where the meaning isn't clear or is softened, in Thai it's just three simple Thai words: ไข้เลือดออก, "fever [that makes] blood [come] out". Luckily I didn't have any hemorrhaging.

As far as I was told, it is not the strains are mild or not, there are in total 4 strains, you get immune with each one you get, but each it will be worse.

> where "hemorrhagic" is a technical term where the meaning isn't clear [...] in Thai it's just three simple Thai words: ไข้เลือดออก, "fever [that makes] blood [come] out"

Well, you still had to add extra words to make the meaning clear enough.

Fair enough. I did that because the grammars of Thai and English are quite different, in noun-modifier order, distinction between verbs and adjectives, and verb conjugation (those are just the relevant differences here). I could have said "blood-exiting fever" but that changes the word order.

Does it still express faithfully the full sentence you needed to use to describe it? I understand that you feel that it does, it's just that I don't see it in how you translate it word for word.

Anyway, I don't speak Thai, so it's very probable that I cannot appreciate this quality even if you tried to explain it a thousand time.

Truly a fascinating method. Apparently, the most effective mosquito population control technique.

The counter-point argument offered at the end of the article/video is totally lame. I find it slightly annoying when journos feel compelled to seek contrarian positions just for the sake of form, regardless of the quality of the arguments.

Yeah. The journalist labels Paul Tambiyah as an infectious disease professor (which he is), but also forgets to mention he is an opposition politician who will literally oppose anything for the sake of opposing.

It's an extra-lame counterpoint because male mosquitos don't bite, and they're only releasing males.

It's lame but it's true that during the Verily release of mosquitoes from their carts [1] in HDB estates, they had a lot of people complain how since releasing they saw more mosquitoes and were bitten more often, while the mosquito traps showed a clear decline in population.

[1] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/nea-alphabet-...

Fwiw, I have had seen more mosquitoes in my room but not really gotten bitten. But they are definitely buzzing around my head at times

How do they separate the genders?

For small scale production it's a manual process (size differences), for industrial scale it's using ML and blowing air in a certain direction. Basically the mosquitoes are brought under a camera in some form of tube, and depending on the gender they are blown into a certain direction separating male and female.

I don't think this is part of Verily, and afaik Verily was one of the first that starting doing this.

Amazing. Thank you!

For the counter-point to be meaningful, people would have to individually kill a lot of mosquitoes. Made me wonder, what fraction of mosquitoes are killed by humans in a city setting? I'd guess it's very small. 1/1000? Has anyone tried to measure this?

I too am curious, but I think it's way, way more than you're guessing. I imagine humans are the single biggest threat to mosquitoes in a city (and also the single biggest source of sustenance).

Direct kills are probably pretty marginal, but Singapore employs insecticides in prodigious quantities. It's almost eerie how eg hawker centres have no flies and outdoor gardens are almost entirely devoid of insects (whereas if you cross the border to Malaysia, both can be found in abundance).

> but Singapore employs insecticides in prodigious quantities.

I am intrigued. Do you have a reference for that?

Huh. Does Singapore not need insect pollinators?

I believe there's very little agriculture in Singapore - almost all food is imported.

Singapore has some limited 'agriculture' (and a big shift to industrialised hydroponics and stuff); but most is outside the city.

It's indeed quite scary how much pesticides are currently used and how a lot of the green patches and parks have little flies, butterflies, and other insects.

> It's indeed quite scary how much pesticides are currently used

I am curious. Do you have a reference for that?

"in rare cases"

My mom nearly died to Dengue fever. Twice. This shit is incredibly dangerous.

Dengue is odd in that surviving an attack of one strain makes you immune to that strain, but increases the odds of getting severe complications if you catch one of the other ones. Which is which dengue vaccine is only recommended for people who have already had it once!

One theory why that happens:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement

Oh shit, this explains why my mom got severely sick on her second round.

Wolbachia is one of the most fascinating and scariest life forms on earth

Truly a weapon to surpass Metal Gear.

Psycho mantis?

You're that ninja!

Why so?

It's a parasite that lives inside the cells of the host (if you can call it a parasite)

For those looking for more info on the project, here's the local agency's website on the project [1]

[1] https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources/researc...

Hard not to think about that Simpsons episode when you read about stuff like this...

Please fix the typo in the title.

Uhhh has no one in Singapore played MGSV?

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