• More than 40,000 male mosquitoes (only the females bite, the blood being used to nourish their eggs), were dropped on the commune of Prades-le-Lez after having been previously sterilized by gamma ray.

  • The object of the experiment was to determine whether it is possible to release mosquitoes effectively.

    The results are very encouraging.

  • Nevertheless, “we are not at all in the operational phase.

    Before considering a large-scale process, other steps will have to be validated ”, specify scientists from EID and CIRAD.

The fight against the tiger mosquito, a real scourge in the great south of France, will perhaps over the next few years involve massive drops, by drone, of sterile male mosquitoes. After initial trials on Reunion Island, the technique was used for the first time in mainland France, this summer, near Montpellier. “And the results are very interesting,” notes Rémi Cluset, technical director of the Mediterranean EID (Interdepartmental Mosquito Control Agreement).

On three occasions, a specially adapted drone dumped a total of 40,000 mosquitoes in the town of Prades-le-Lez.

These male mosquitoes, which do not bite (only females do, the blood being used to nourish their eggs), were previously sterilized by gamma ray and marked with a fluorescent powder in order to differentiate them, then, from wild mosquitoes.

Far from being in the operational phase

On land, 30 nesting traps collected 90,000 eggs to determine their hatching rate in the laboratory, while scent traps captured 32,500 mosquitoes.

Between 2.5 and 5.4% of them were sterile mosquitoes.

A figure considered very promising by scientists, who were looking to know their survival capacity.

As for the hatching rate, it decreased to 83% (against 95% before the releases), a figure that is still informal.

Because the experiment, financed by Europe and piloted by CIRAD, had another goal: "to determine whether it is possible to release mosquitoes effectively," explains Bruno Tourre, Director General of EID.

So far it works.

But we are not at all in the operational phase.

Before considering a large-scale process, other steps will need to be validated.

"

To be effective, it takes ten male mosquitoes for a wild

As the financing of industrial production costs for the production of sterile mosquitoes on a large scale.

As part of this experiment, the mosquitoes were sterilized in Italy and airlifted to Montpellier.

The feedback from experiences carried out in different parts of the world mainly concerns the dissemination of sterile mosquitoes from the ground (which requires much greater human resources than drone dropping).

To have a significant impact on egg fertilization, sterile male mosquitoes must be ten times more numerous than wild mosquitoes.

Not a quick fix

Even if it were ultimately validated, the process would only come in addition to an essential gesture: the tiger mosquito is born and reproduces in our gardens.

The larvae develop in water points: emptying and storing any object that can serve as a nest is essential.

"The dropping of sterile males by drone will not be a miracle solution", warns the scientific community.

In addition to its nuisance effect, the tiger mosquito, an invasive species from Southeast Asia, can transmit dengue, chikungunya and Zika.

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  • Languedoc-Roussillon

  • Montpellier

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