In Bangladesh, regular cycles of heat and rain have long cultivated dense populations of insects, and, by extension, the diseases they carry. Dengue fever was first confirmed in Bangladesh 60 years ago, but the disease, carried by Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, caused unforeseen devastation in 2023. By the end of the year, the death toll reached more than 1,700, making it the worst outbreak of dengue fever in Bangladesh’s recorded history. One scientific study linked the unprecedented rash of disease to climatic changes that fostered especially ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes and warned that future epidemics would likely arise as Bangladesh experiences changes to seasonal rain patterns and temperature spikes. Failures of common prevention techniques, due to gained genetic resistance and changes in the disease itself, intensify the threat of future dengue fever outbreaks, as well as other mosquito-borne diseases like chikungunya and malaria. Afsana Al Latif, a graduate student and research assistant at the Insect Rearing and Experimental Station (IRES) at Jahangirnagar University, is one of the many people looking for ways to better control mosquito populations. “There are a lot of problems with mosquitoes, but people are not interested in this. It’s a small insect, but many people are dying because of just this mosquito,” Al Latif said. Afsana Al Latif points to a micrograph of a mosquito at IRES. Image by Hailey Smally. IRES is the only research facility in the country that breeds captive mosquitoes for research. Nestled in a dense grove of trees far removed from…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The post In the wake of Bangladesh’s deadliest dengue outbreak, researchers respond first appeared on EnviroLink Network.