The Amazon’s Tourism Authority Selects Oxitec’s Friendly™ Aedes aegypti to Safely Combat Dengue Vector in the Capital City of Brazil’s Amazon Region
STATEMENT
31 August 2023
The Amazon’s Tourism Authority Selects Oxitec’s Friendly™ Aedes aegypti to Safely Combat Dengue Vector in the Capital City of Brazil’s Amazon Region
Oxitec’s targeted and biological mosquito control solution has been selected to combat the invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito in the city of Manaus, the capital of Brazil’s biodiverse and ecologically sensitive Amazon region.
The Amazonas state tourism authority will deploy Friendly™ Aedes aegypti products across selected busy locations in Manaus to protect locals and visitors from the mosquito at a time when dengue incidence is escalating across Brazil.
Oxitec launched the just-add-water Friendly™ Aedes aegypti in 2022, and is serving households, communities, and many of the Brazil’s largest companies and public institutions.
Campinas, 31/08/2023 - Oxitec Ltd, the leading developer of insect-based biological solutions to control pests that transmit disease, destroy crops and harm livestock, announced today that the tourism authority in the Brazilian state of Amazonas has selected Oxitec’s safe, non-toxic, sustainable Friendly™ Aedes aegypti solution to combat the disease-spreading mosquito, Aedes aegypti, in the region’s capital city, Manaus.
The just-add-water Friendly™ Aedes aegypti devices will be placed in busy locations across Manaus, including around museums, transportation hubs, central squares and the city’s main port, where Aedes aegypti presents a disease risk to local communities and visitors to the city. Oxitec’s solution was chosen for its environmental sustainability – Manaus is located in the Amazon, one of the world’s most ecologically important, diverse and sensitive regions – as well as for its proven track record in Brazil and elsewhere.
Oxitec’s just-add-water product produces non-biting Friendly™ male mosquitoes over time, which mate with invasive, biting Aedes aegypti females. Their female offspring cannot survive, which means fewer biting female mosquitoes in the following generations. In urban pilots in the city of Indaiatuba, deployments of the Friendly™ Aedes aegypti in densely populated communities led to up to 96% suppression of Aedes aegypti populations. For spot treatments in specific locations, Friendly™ Aedes aegypti is an effective larvicide: the female offspring of Friendly™ male mosquitoes perish during the juvenile larval stage, before they reach adulthood.
Oxitec’s Friendly™ technology controls the pest mosquito without harming beneficial species like bees and butterflies. To date, more than 1 billion Friendly™ male mosquitoes have been released in Brazil and elsewhere around the world, with no impact on people, animals, beneficial insects, plants, crops, water systems, or the environment in general. Fully approved in 2020 as safe by Brazil’s regulatory authority, CTNBio, Friendly™ Aedes aegypti – called Aedes do Bem™ in Brazil – was launched commercially in 2022 and is now serving communities, businesses and institutions across the country. This new deployment in Manaus for the Amazonas Tourist Authority is a significant new step towards efforts to control a critical disease vector in a unique and important ecosystem.
Grey Frandsen, Oxitec’s CEO, commented “We couldn’t be prouder to be taking a leadership role in helping combat expanding, climate-related threats posed by disease-spreading mosquitoes while helping to preserve one of our planet’s most sensitive and biodiverse regions. Communities in the Amazon are suffering immensely from dengue, and because the Amazon region represents one of the most critical ecosystems for our planet’s climate health, vector control interventions must be safe, species-specific, and environmentally sustainable. That’s where we lead. We’re honoured that our solution for the dengue mosquito has been selected to protect locals and visitors in Manaus - not only on the merits of its proven, outstanding efficacy, but also its unique environmental sustainability and safety. Time to get to work.”
Ian Ribeiro, the President of Amazonas State’s tourism authority, Amazonastur, was quoted as saying “Amazonastur chose the most visited city locations, both by Brazilians and international tourists, as well as by the Amazonian population itself. They are focal points for large numbers of people. And we are following Governor [of the state of Amazonas] Wilson Lima's determination to do all of this in a sustainable way. Delivering protection to our communities, without harming the environment and our Amazon.”
Natália Ferreira, Oxitec Brazil’s Director, commented that, “We’re delighted to be serving the Amazonas Tourist Authority. This is yet another example of the demand among governments, businesses, communities and households for our targeted and sustainable solution for the invasive Aedes aegypti. Dengue cases across Brazil are at record levels this year – and it’s an honour for our entire team to be delivering such important, scaled-up impact against this problem mosquito in our cities and communities, including in the most sensitive of ecosystems like the Amazon.”
Oxitec’s Friendly™ technology has been studied by experts across the globe, and is described in more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, which can be found here. In addition to CTNBio’s exhaustive review of Oxitec’s Aedes aegypti technology, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency performed a two-year scientific review of Oxitec’s Aedes aegypti and found that it is safe for humans, animals and the environment in relation to an ongoing program of releases in an ecologically sensitive region of the state of Florida. That scientific risk assessment is here.
Special Note: Oxitec’s product controls the female progeny of successfully mated wild Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. This product is intended to specifically target the disease vector, Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits dengue. As with any other pest-control technology, results may vary based on local conditions, other vector control efforts, and duration of treatment.
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About Oxitec
Oxitec is the leading developer of biological solutions to control pests that transmit disease, destroy crops and harm livestock. Founded in 2002 at the University of Oxford, Oxitec is led by a passionate team comprised of 15 nationalities and is supported by world-class public, private and non-profit partners.