Jabar Ekspres – The Ministry of Health (MoH) says Wolbachia is a friendly and sustainable technology innovation to fight dengue disease in Indonesia.
“Wolbachia is a symbiotic bacterium that can be found in more than 70 percent of insect species in the world, including flies, bees, butterflies and mosquitoes,” said the ministry’s Director of Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Imran Pambudi in Jakarta, Thursday.
Imran explained that the purpose of Wolbachia is to prevent the Aedes Aegypti mosquito from reproducing the Dengue Virus in its body and transmitting it to humans.
In addition, the technology is presented as a complement to existing dengue control programs such as the One House One Jumantik Movement (G1R1J) and Pokjanal Dengue.
From the results of studies conducted by the Ministry of Health, he said, it turned out that Wolbachia-infected Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes have the same genetic characteristics as local Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes. Fortunately, Wolbachia, which is a good bacteria, can be found in the environment around humans.
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This is considered an opportunity to strengthen dengue control by increasing the number of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes to mate with Dengue Virus-carrying mosquitoes.
“So these mosquitoes will be flown with Wolbachia, then mated with other Aedes mosquitoes (that carry the virus), so that their offspring can no longer spread dengue,” he said.
Imran continued that based on Health Ministerial Decree Number 1341 of 2022, the Ministry of Health will hold a Wolbachia technology pilot project in five cities, such as West Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Kupang, and Bontang.
“Two weeks ago, we launched it in Semarang, in Tembalang sub-district, then it will be gradually spread to the next sub-districts,” said Imran Pambudi.
The results of the Wolbachia deployment show that this technology has reduced the incidence of dengue infection by 77.1 percent and the hospitalization rate by 82.6 percent.
