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Fish, other mosquitoes now warriors in Zika battle

– Sterilizing mosquitoes –

In Mexico, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, said it was testing the use of radiation to stop the mosquitoes breeding.

Scientists hope to use radiation “to make the male mosquito sterile, so then he goes back to his habitat and even if he mates, the female will not have any offspring,” Amano was quoted as saying by Mexican magazine Reforma.

“Bit by bit, the insect’s population gets reduced and in the end it is eradicated.”

In Argentina, online vendors are hawking frogs and toads for $7 each.

They are touting them as a protection against Zika, and especially against the more common dengue fever — and as an alternative to mosquito repellents or insecticides.

Those chemical products are often sold out in shops and the government has warned that Aedes Aegypti is resisting fumigation efforts.

Argentina has only reported a handful of Zika infections among travelers returning from abroad, but like Mexico it has thousands of cases of dengue.

In the 1960s Latin America brought Aedes Aegypti under control but “it started multiplying again due to carelessness by the authorities,” Velez said.

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“Right now, the situation is more complicated. The mosquito is present in more towns, there is more population movement and global warming is helping it survive,” he warned.

“But if the government adopts policies to bring it under control, it can be done.”

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