Will the “Chennai City Corporation” Successfully Control and Eradicate ‘Mosquitoes’ By Growing Mosquitoes?

‘Mosquito’ is one of the many health hazards of Tamilnadu, especially, Chennai City.

Mosquitoes are spreading many diseases including the deadly disease of  ‘dengue fever’.

The Corporation of Chennai has been taking steps to control and eradicate  mosquitoes and ‘dengue fever’.

The Chennai City Corporation has shortlisted a technology for eradicating mosquitoes, after screening 23 projects/proposals submitted by private agencies.

The shortlisted project to control mosquitoes is surprisingly  to grow mosquitoes and control “Mosquitoes by Mosquitoes”.

Actually, only the female mosquitoes are biting human beings and cause and spread many diseases. The male mosquitoes never bite human beings and their food is the nectar from flowers.

The new project of mosquito-control is as detailed below:

• The technology is  to grow ‘sterile male’-mosquitoes to support its mosquito control operations without harming the .environment
• Specially designed glass houses having  a dimension of 20 feet by 100 feet will be formed to grow ‘sterile male mosquitoes’ of different species in and around Chennai City
• About 1 lakh of mosquitoes will be produced, of which about 40% of es will be male mosquitoes
• The females will be separated by attracting them using male pheromones and  killed
• The  remaining male mosquitoes will be subjected to ‘gamma radiation’ of appropriate dosage to make them sterile.
• The sterile male mosquitoes thus produced will be introduced in and around Chennai City  with high mosquito density
• The female mosquitoes breeding  in such areas will lay infertile eggs.
• The female mosquitoes will die after laying eggs
• And the infertile eggs laid by the female mosquitoes will not hatch and this will lead to reduction in the number of mosquitoes in and around Chennai  City.

• Exorbitant cost in procurement of pheromones to separate the male mosquitoes from the female mosquitoes,
• Requirement of sufficient trained manpower,
• Clearance of the  ‘Atomic Energy Regulatory Board’  in commissioning equipment for emitting gamma radiation to sterile the male mosquitoes,
• The challenges caused by the mosquitoes-breeding grounds in over 25,000 unoccupied plots of land, two lakh overhead tanks, 74,526 wells, 65,166 sumps and 1,300 km of storm-water drains
• The existing “Fogging” operations to control  mosquitoes will have to be continued.