In Singapore, a woman recently made the news for killing 323 mosquitos within a single month, but as it turns out, she just might have also destroyed a large number that were specifically meant to lower the spread of the dengue virus.
First bringing up her feat to local social news portal Stomp, the woman named Jen went into detail about how she'd gone on a one-month mosquito killing spree and had managed to kill a staggering amount of mosquitoes at her mother's flat in Tampines.
After becoming frustrated at the overwhelming amount of mosquitos flying around and attacking members of her family, Jen decided to fight the problem head on.
Using an electric swatter, she conducted regular mosquito-killing sessions and then collected the dead bodies in labelled ziplog bags to use as proof of her kills.
Over the course of about a month, Jen amassed an impressive collection of dead mosquitos – 323 of them carefully counted and portioned by the number of kills per week.
During one particular week, Jen impressively managed to kill a grand total of 106 mosquitos.
"I am desperate to get rid of these mosquitos. This living condition is affecting my family's quality of life and it's not conducive for us to work from home," Jen was quoted as saying. "We do get bitten by the mosquitos, but not all the time, because we do hourly wipeouts with our three electric swatters to kill them."
"But even if they don't bite us, it is still very itchy when they're just flying around our legs."
She also proceeded to bring up the problem to Singapore's National Environment Agency (NEA) and the Tampines Town Council in the hopes of them addressing the problem and dealing with the overwhelming amount of mosquitos in the area – especially the overgrown tree outside her mother's flat which she suspected to be a major breeding spot.
But sadly, Jen's heroics may have been misguided.
According to statements from the NEA, the killing spree may have also included the deaths of some Wolbachia-Aedes variants that were strategically released into the wild to combat the spread of the dengue virus.
As part of NEA's Project Wolbachia, the Wolbachia-Aedes mosquitos have been continuously released in stages in and around a number of areas around Singapore – Tampines included – to reduce the population of the Dengue-causing Aedes aegypti mosquitos via sterilization.
Simply, the process involves having harmless male Wolbachia-Aedes mosquitos mate with the Dengue-carrying females, who then lay eggs that don't hatch.
Giving statements to the media, the NEA confirmed that Jen's mother's flat was located within one of the designated release sites, and acknowledged the possible nuisance caused by the overwhelming number of mosquitos in some areas.
"We understand the inconvenience experienced by some residents in Project Wolbachia areas, when the male mosquitoes choose to swarm around a certain area, as experienced by the feedback provider," they said.
But in terms of effectiveness, the NEA have reported that the release of Wolbachia-Aedes variants in study sites have seen the reduction of Aedes aegypti mosquitos by 90 percent, and they now hope to achieve the same level of success in other areas.
Moving forward, the NEA will work with Jen to see how the matter can be resolved by obtaining and studying her collection of dead mosquitos, while the Tampines Town Council has made plans to trim and prune the overgrown tree outside Jen's mother's flat.
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Cover image sourced from Stomp and Marin/Sonoma Mosquito & Vector Control District.
