Quantifying the impact of Wolbachia releases on dengue infection in Townsville, Australia
Background
From October 2014 to February 2019, local authorities in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia continually introduced Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes to control seasonal outbreaks of dengue infection. In this study, we develop a mathematical modelling framework to estimate the effectiveness of this intervention as well as the relative dengue transmission rates of Wolbachia-infected and wild-type mosquitoes. We find that the transmission rate of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes is reduced approximately by a factor of 20 relative to the uninfected wild-type population.
Ogunlade, S. T., Adekunle, A. I., Meehan, M. T., & McBryde, E. S. (2023). Quantifying the impact of Wolbachia releases on dengue infection in Townsville, Australia. Scientific Reports, 13(1), 14932.