Founded in 2002 and purchased by Intrexon a year ago for $160 million, Oxitec creates genetically modified, sterile male mosquitoes to mate with virus-carrying females, a process that the company says in multiple trials has cut the population of the disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquito by 90 percent within six months.
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The battle has abruptly become more pressing by what the World Health Organization (WHO) has called the explosive spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus through Brazil and other parts of Latin America.
In Brazil, Zika has been linked, although not definitively so, to 4,000 cases of microcephaly, in which babies are born with smaller than normal brains, raising global fears about a virus that was previously considered relatively benign.
The virus reaches humans through mosquito bites, although researchers haven’t ruled out transmission through sexual intercourse or blood transfusions.
The little-known virus re-emerged in Brazil in 2015.
Deputy Health Minister Fernando Ruiz said Friday Colombia has now recorded 41 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome that appear to be linked to Zika.
“We want to be clear that Zika can not be transmitted through casual contact”, Dr. Robinson said on a conference call with reporters.
It can’t also be a coincidence that Zika has been around for some 50 years with no reported connection to birth defects of any sort. “Whether this situation in Brazil represents a real commercial opportunity or just a change to validate the Oxitec technology on a grand scale is unclear”, Thomas Shrader, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus wrote in a recent research note.
The WHO, which says there could be as many as 4m clinical cases of Zika in the Americas – although some experts think the figure could be much higher – is under pressure to come up with a speedy and effective plan of action after being sharply criticised for its slow response to the Ebola crisis.
‘The fewer the mosquitoes, the lower the risk of disease.
Zika isn’t being transmitted in the continental US, but it has been found in returning travelers and is spreading in Puerto Rico, prompting President Obama this week to convene a special meeting with his top health and national security officials.
“I was hesitant about using genetic manipulation with species in general, but this is a very prescriptive use for a very humane objective”, said Doyle, an entomologist, or scientist who studies bugs.
Those infected contracted the virus while traveling overseas.
Tubes containing larvae of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the carrier of Zika virus, are displayed in a laboratory of the Ministry of Health, in San Jose, Costa Rica, on January 29, 2016.
The virus is spreading across South America and one solution is to stem the outbreak by fumigating mosquitoes.
Critics worry about the long-term effects of releasing genetically modified organisms.
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The CDC and other government organizations are working to determine whether this link is a causal relationship or whether the birth defects are caused by something else.
