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Poster Session

Adult Control

Poster Session

P-6 - TESTING A COMBINED IIT/SIT APPROACH TO CONTROL MOSQUITO-BORNE DISEASES AT SCALE IN SOUTH MEXICO

Wednesday, March 5, 2025
12:15 PM – 1:45 PM AST
Location: Hall A
Abstract: A previous pilot project in a suburban locality near the city of Mérida during 2019, demonstrated that Aedes aegypti males produced with the Incompatible Insect Technique (IIT) and the sterile insect technique (SIT) approach using wAlbB strain at UADY’s Laboratory for the Biological Control of Ae. aegypti (LCB-UADY) can efficaciously reduce 90% of indoor Ae. aegypti females during their peak period of abundance. Built on the very successful field trial and existing mosquito mass-rearing capacity established at the LCB-UADY in Merida, scaling up our innovation is not only logical but also feasible. We present preliminary results from a two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial consisting of two treatment neighborhoods and two control neighborhoods from the metropolitan area of Merida city, known to be historical hotspots of arbovirus transmission. The intervention includes integrated control activities structured in two phases: 1) an Attack phase (first 4 weeks of May 2024) with area-wide UBV adulticide spraying to control Aedes adults in four weekly applications in the four towns and 2) the mosquito-releases phase (May 2024-December 2025) when 2,000 male mosquitoes per hectare will be released twice a week. For the escalation and evaluation of the intervention, an “Integrated Management Plan for the mosquito vector Aedes aegypti” will be developed in coordination with the Vector Control Program of the MoH of Yucatan incorporating the release of male mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia with "traditional" vector control during two transmission seasons. The findings from this study will provide evidence of the direct impact of IIT/SIT on disease transmission, establish a link between epidemiological, entomo-virological and entomological, and indicators to determine a threshold of mosquito population for target suppression, and develop an operation strategy with key stakeholders involved, which is cost-effective, practical, and sustainable for area-wide implementation.