Ministry Of Health Spreads Wolbachia Mosquito Eggs In Kupang Overcome Dengue Fever, Here's How It Works

Illustration: Researcher from Elimate Dengue Project (EDP) Yogyakarta showed an egg of aedes aegypti wolbachia mosquito that was deposited in people's homes at the Yogyakarta EDP office, Wednesday (13/12). BETWEEN PHOTOS/

The Ministry of Health (Kemenkes) has distributed Wolbachia mosquito eggs in Kupang City, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), as an effort to overcome cases of Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) in the region. "We see this (Wolbachia) is good, that's why we do pilot projects in four regencies/cities, and Kupang is one of them," said Minister of Health (Menkes) Budi Gunadi Sadikin in a statement received in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, October 25. Wolbachia is a bacteria that can grow naturally in insects, especially mosquitoes. Wolbachia bacteria can paralyze dengue viruses in Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes so they cannot transmit dengue viruses to humans. In this program, Wolbachia bacteria have been put into the eggs of the Aedes Aegypti mosquito so as not to transmit the dengue virus when the eggs hatch. The Wolbachia mosquito eggs were distributed from the University of Gadjah Mada (UGM) Yogyakarta. The Ministry of Health predicts that at least 2.6 million Wolbachia mosquito eggs are needed every week in Kupang City, in order to reach the population of 80 percent of mosquitoes with Wolbachia from the entire Aedes Aegypti mosquito. "Hopefully with this pilot project, quite a lot of dengue transmission can decrease," said Minister of Health Budi. This effort received support and appreciation from the local government (Pemda). Acting (Pj) Kupang Mayor Faharnsy P. Funay said that his party welcomed the program. "The Kupang City Government is trying hard to take steps to overcome dengue fever, including the Wolbachia program, we fully support it," said Faharnsy. For information, in September 2023 there were 187 dengue cases with two deaths in Kupang City. Previously in 2022 the number of dengue cases reached 445 cases. DHF is still a health problem every year in Kupang City, due to the large number of cases with a high mortality rate.