• Submitted by: admin
• Health and Medicine
• 04 / 06 / 2010

---

A bacterium can infect virus-carrying mosquitoes and avoid the disease to spread, PLS Pathogens magazine reports.

Wolbachia induces a reproductive abnormality known as cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI), which results in early embryo death when a Wolbachia-infected male has mated with a female that is uninfected or harboring a different Wolbachia type.

One of the stumps of bacterium Wolbachia caused the early embryo death to Aedes aegypti, and another could spread rapidly the infection through the mosquito population.

Researchers from US University of Michigan worked with Australian researchers in this project and pointed out that there are no risks to human health because the bacterium does not infect people.

Lab tests show that Wolbachia induces a reproductive abnormality which results in early embryo death when a Wolbachia-infected male has mated with a female that is uninfected or harboring a different Wolbachia type.

But in the case Wolbachia do not change the embryonic development, the infection can spread quickly in a Aedes aegypti population.

The study suggests that the bacterium could help to control dengue, disease that affects 2.5 million people mainly in poor countries.

By Cosette Perez   

Source: Prensa Latina