Genetic approaches in Aedes aegypti for control of dengue: an overview

The mosquito-borne dengue viruses (DV) cause an estimated 50 million human infections annually. The incidence of severe dengue disease in Southeast Asia and Latin America is increasing at an alarming rate. There are currently no vaccines or anti-viral therapies available to mitigate dengue disease. Current methodologies for controlling the principal vector, Aedes aegypti, are inadequate and ineffective. A potential solution to this growing human-health crisis is to develop new geneticsbased vector control (GVC) approaches as part of an integrated control strategy. GVC includes both population reduction and population replacement strategies and represents a broad spectrum of genetic mechanisms at various stages in their development for field-testing. To realize the full potentials of these GVC strategies it is critical that we investigate, evaluate and, where appropriate, develop these strategies to the point where they can be deployed at field sites in one or more disease-endemic countries (DECs).