Mosquito-spreading drone to fight diseases

Drones that scatter swarms of sterile mosquitoes over wide areas are being developed to help stop the spread of diseases such as malaria.

Sterile male mosquitoes cannot produce offspring when they mate with females. By crowding out other males, they reduce the mosquito population.

But spreading them is difficult in areas without roads, so technology organisation WeRobotics has been developing drones to do the job.

It will trial the idea in 2018.

"Mosquitoes carry many diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and Zika virus. It makes them one of the biggest animal killers worldwide," Adam Klaptocz, WeRobotics co-founder, told the BBC.

  

"There are lots of methods to control mosquito populations - fumigation, insecticide - but they all have downsides. Insecticide is not good for environment and needs to be constantly deployed."

Releasing sterile insects had been an effective method of population control for a variety of species, he said.

Often the sterile insects are released from backpacks carried by the scientists, but it is difficult to spread them over a wide area - and they cannot simply be dumped in one location.

WeRobotics was approached by international aid organisations to help produce a solution.

Source: BBC

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