Unlike the white Renault, the slow pace and occasional puff something from his window, which Oxitec Vehicle Line looks just like any other cars that crisscross Piracicaba each morning before the city wakes up. Consequently, just most days. climbs down Vara do Acucar, around Unimep University and Delta supermarket for the sun high in the sky, and all the available goods.
Then the driver took us worthless - hitting the accelerator and return to the factory, about 60 km away. Interestingly Open Door. And they are not aware of what Oxitec can not be, not only intrigued, but furious, we see that on closer inspection, these little puffs are made up of thousands of mosquitoes. Sitting in the back of the car, shaking the pot in 1000 Oxitec mosquitoes every employee on the street in the middle of the cone and bladeless fan points signaled its release on iPad: It's creatures first relief.
They hover for a moment that there is something of a surprise, before they scattered here and there looking for female voice wingbeats: So the release of GM insects only the appearance of Aedes aegypti. OX513A such are entitled to catalog Oxitec.
Aedes aegypti, in its natural form, not only the carrier of dengue, fighting Piracicaba. It is also a 'vector' for Zika, a virus, such as the insect itself originated in Africa. The easiest way to stop the spread of Zika remove the vector, and the World Health Organization This notice (WHO) this week that Zika is a public health crisis, have suggestions aegypti kill quickly and in large numbers, vital become important. Like Ebola, emergency, head heap late archaic methods of protecting public health. Ebola crisis in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, people are warned not to shake hands or hug, and burn the bodies. Brazil, soldiers going to explain to the door which aegypti can breed in even the smallest pools, such as the bottom of a can of Coke. It is not recommended for pregnant women. and fogging machines to ride up and down the streets, spewing toxic chemicals.
It was a very different way, Fred L. Soper of the American epidemiologist malaria mosquitoes is expelled from Brazil in 1930 (and later) in twelve years. Soper, however, was a rare kind of fanatical type of person who needs to move up the mountain when exposed Anopheles gambiae family: He lost 27 pounds in three months on the job, as he climbed the gutter and personally inspected the property. Also clean up helping the Brazilian brand in the country's politics, then under the control Getulio Vargas and his military junta. mosquito came in a distant second place to personal freedoms war. It is impossible to say Soper became known to eradicate mosquitoes in democracy.
Which summarizes the task of President Dilma Rousseff and the Partido dos Trabalhadores, or Party Workers' Party, in the face. Modern city bigger and messier than they Soper day. And as a resident district Vasco de Gama Zika burden of Recife, it is enough to drink her dozens of songbirds and water bowls (which aegypti breed), there is much that government can do.
Perhaps the owner of the birds is no longer able to have children, and so are not afraid to fight Zika, which most adults unscathed late. Danger, then transferred with their neighbors. Aegytpi can fly about 200 yards. In November, an obstetrician in northeastern Brazil, Adrianna Melo confirmed that the increase in the number of children born with a misshapen head, a condition known as microcephaly is connected to the Zika virus, previously unnoticed by their mothers, brains of these children do not develop, and confronted with a severe intellectual disability, and the ability to premature death. In 2100 the Colombian pregnant women confirmed as Zika virus. thousands more in Brazil and 20 other countries in the Americas. The Caribbean is another hot spot, and cases of Zika began to show up in the south of the United States (and Europe as a means of sexual transmission). Many countries in Latin America, it is almost impossible to obtain a legal abortion, so an infected mother to face months wrenching panic.
'We can do it,' Hadyna Parry, CEO of Oxitec, - tells me as we between Velcro and tulle mosquito «cage» headquarters was in Abingdon. 'If someone says that [username excluding Brazil Aedes aegypti] plan, you have to go to work ... but someone has to say,' I'm all for, I pay for it. What do you need help? '
Parry cool overnight transformation of small businesses, those 100 people use between Abingdon and Brazil to the great white hope Zika control. Wearing red protective coat over a blue and white striped shirt, my love, honestly, speak as a retired soldier, impresario biotechnology (until 2013 he was also co-chair of the heroes of charity and comes from a military family . 'half-military, half-navy) OXIT advantage in technology, he says, is that it eliminates the need to irregular aegypti hunt for people who can be hidden under a pot silently out the window, untouched by any of the fumigation. A breeding female can lead to chaos. If one stays in a bowl of water Vasco de Gama, it may take more than a month, long-life production of more than 500 mosquitoes that are uncontrolled - can bring another 125,000 before they die, producing millions more.
'On the other hand,' Parry explains how the press is on one side of the jaw is trying a mosquito that broke somehow free of the cage, 'with the release of more than 100 of our people, these people go everywhere, and go and girls, because that is what people are really good. '
Oxitec male mosquitoes produce a critical difference. They are genetically engineered so that their children do not survive to adulthood. The 20 or so cages in the lab Abingdon, thousands OX513A brand aegypti near hanging or resting on a black handkerchief in each cage ceiling. These are keepers. Their eggs, which look like fine black dust can collect Tupperware boxes and shipped to anywhere in the world before they are submerged in chemically treated water, and then turn into larvae. Simple sieve removes a woman is too big to fit through the holes, leaving only expensive, weaker men behind him.
Yesterday morning, like every morning, Guilherme Travellato and his two man team spent another 160,000 or so Oxitec men in the streets Piracicaba: Weekly released about 800,000. Evolution forced to mate, and he is not a descendant of creatures in his dual role with abandon. Travellato work to control some of the locals. 'That's not the only way, but it is really effective,' he says, speaking by telephone from Campinas, Sao Paulo state, where Oxitec based main plant.
Small-scale tests of Panama, the Cayman Islands and Brazil all show a consistent reduction of 90 and many aegypti remarkable speed. Locals gather to celebrate, despite the recent acceptance of the delivery, the owner of a mini-mart in Piracicaba, supermarket Valor, complained that Oxitec wounded selling Gatorade: (Those who experience dengue contract burning thirst, but much less ill are, the demand for power Gatorade hydration left).
It took months for the international community to wake him against Ebola, a month which may spread the disease and eventually kill about 11,000 people. The lesson seems to have been obtained. Zika, focusing on preparing to do a lot, but not doing very little risk. And yet, in some ways, the world has a margin of Ebola. Despite the fact that very little attention is paid to the control of symptoms as a disease mainly affects poor people from poor parts of Africa, researchers focused on the West, however, a potential biological weapon of war, and experienced a series of small outbreaks since 1976 vaccines are produced relatively quickly. For comparison, listen very few epidemiologists Zika ssix month. The vaccine has been removed for at least a decade. We learned a few days ago that Zika can be transmitted sexually, and still have no idea whether it is a virus that causes a child is born with smooth, unfinished brains or any other relevant factor.
Oxitec, at this time, is not in a position of great help. The company grows its own cocoon: Live tests were first conducted in 2009, but its Campinas plant is only room for the GM mosquitoes, which is home to 10,000. Meanwhile, another plant in a position to serve 300,000 people are now frantic construction. A Zika 'throw challenge all of our programs, 'said Parry, when we went to the lab to include another warehouse, which facilities for research and development. 'If we build a new factory or 10 '. It took three months to get this work state warehouse. In the event that the Brazilian government to intervene and centralized Oxitec technology, rather than to local authorities to decide, Parry estimated that the country would be flooded OX513A aegypti year.
But even those who are open to GM will be difficult to suppress twang alarm. Davadr
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