Alphabet’s Verily seeks to eradicate dengue in Singapore
Singapore could become the first dengue-free country in the tropics, according to Alphabet’s life sciences unit Verily — if the government decides to use its technology across the city state to tackle the mosquito-borne disease.
Dengue claims 300mn victims each year, with 90mn serious cases and tens of thousands of deaths, the majority being children. In Singapore, cases have surged this year, with the average weekly number as of early December being 20 per cent higher than normal, according to the National Environment Agency.
But in some residential neighbourhoods where the NEA and Verily have run field trials, it is a different story. Verily’s tech fights dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with the release of other facility-bred Wolbachia-Aedes mosquitoes. The NEA has reported up to 98 per cent suppression of the Aedes aegypti population and an 88 per cent reduction in dengue cases after at least one year of releases under Project Wolbachia, which Verily joined in 2018.
WMP’s trial in Yogyakarta in Indonesia showed a 77 per cent reduction in dengue cases and an 86 per cent reduction in dengue hospitalisations in Wolbachia-treated areas compared with untreated areas.
“High-income countries such as Singapore or states in the US can afford the male mosquito method used by Verily. But in cities such as Jakarta, Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh, both the mosquito and human population are much higher, making it more difficult and expensive. [That technology] has not been proven at scale,” Simmons added. “We don’t solve the problem of people being bitten. The mosquitoes are still there, but we solve the health problem.”
Proponents argue that suppression techniques are still cheaper than the public health cost over the long term. Research by the NEA put the economic impact of dengue at between $1bn to $2.2bn between 2010 and 2020.
Upson agreed there was an environmental impact to any interference but said the problem of invasive species of mosquito such as aedes aegypti — which is not native to south-east Asia — had become ever more serious for governments and health systems.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Mercedes Ruehl
