{"id":96433,"date":"2019-12-15T16:57:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-15T23:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96433"},"modified":"2019-12-15T16:57:24","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T23:57:24","slug":"sri-lanka-to-fight-dengue-virus-with-bacteria-wolbachia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/15\/sri-lanka-to-fight-dengue-virus-with-bacteria-wolbachia\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka to fight dengue virus with bacteria \u201cWolbachia\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong><em>Courtesy NewsIn.Asia<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Colombo, December 13 (Xinhua): The Sri Lankan government is to begin trialling a special bacteria as part of a program to eradicate the dengue virus, local media reports, quoting Health Ministry officials said here Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/newsin.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Dengue-ward-in-a-Sri-Lankan-hospital-750x375.jpg\" alt=\"Sri Lanka to fight dengue virus with bacteria \u201cWolbachia\u201d\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Deputy Director General of the Health Ministry Paba Palihawadana said that a type of bacteria called Wolbachia\u201d will be released in 25 local townships in Colombo starting February next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Households will be provided with mosquito eggs and a food capsule which must be sealed in water for two weeks, after which the mature mosquitoes will be released into the environment to spread the bacteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newsin.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Dengue-carrying-mosquito.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/newsin.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Dengue-carrying-mosquito.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-35387\"\/><\/a><figcaption>Dengue carrying Aedes mosquito<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the World Mosquito Program, Wolbachia\u201d decreases the ability of mosquitoes to transmit viruses between people and is self-sustaining at high levels. Wolbachia\u201d competes with mosquito-borne viruses like dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever and Zika, helping to reduce transmission of the viruses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Australia was the first country in the world to use Wolbachia\u201d to control mosquito-borne diseases and no transmissions have been recorded in eight years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2017, Sri Lanka suffered a severe outbreak of dengue with 186,101 reported cases and over 320 deaths. The unprecedented outbreak was met with significant government intervention to eradicate breeding grounds and educate citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the Epidemiology Unit of the Health Ministry, the country has recorded 86,484 cases of dengue in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy NewsIn.Asia Colombo, December 13 (Xinhua): The Sri Lankan government is to begin trialling a special bacteria as part of a program to eradicate the dengue virus, local media reports, quoting Health Ministry officials said here Thursday. Deputy Director General of the Health Ministry Paba Palihawadana said that a type of bacteria called Wolbachia\u201d will [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}