Ideas: The Mousticide story

Edward Ong is on a quest to discover and create Malaysia’s best ideas. He is an award-winning Writer and Creative Director and can be found at IdeasAreBorderless.com

The number of dengue cases and dengue deaths have been dropping steadily over the last three years.

From January to June this year, 32,435 cases of dengue fever with 53 deaths were reported nationwide- a decrease of 34.8 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Objective

According to Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, speaking at the 8th Asian Dengue Day 2018 celebration, the falling numbers come from the “cooperation of various ministries and agencies through the Dengue Special Task Force Committee platform.”

Volunteers for the Communication for Behavioural Impact (COMBI) programme also helped by eradicating mosquito breeding grounds.

If we’re going to win the fight against dengue, it will be through a combined effort from all parties, including home owners.

In this case study, the objective can be defined as: To reduce incidences of dengue.

That’s the general goal. To find a great solution, it helps to narrow down the problem.

When you think about it, preventing dengue is not so much a health problem. Treating dengue is. Preventing it is an environmental problem.

No stagnant water. Clean, neat surroundings. These two factors alone greatly reduce the chances of contracting dengue.

Challenge

“Mosquitoes have been around for a very long time. They’ve survived all kind of predators and are smarter than we give them credit for,” says Dr. Neil Ranaweera, co-founder and Managing Director of EntoGenex, a Malaysian-based biotechnology company.

“Which is easier to kill,” he asks, “An adult mosquito which won’t stay still, or its larvae trapped in stagnant water?”

“Aedes larvae breed in still waters. When they’re contained in a small space, there’s no escape. Sure, you can easily tip or overturn containers with water. But what about water in hard-to-reach places? Mosquito larvae have been known to breed in the water inside an overturned bottle cap.”

Truth

Mosquitoes are one of the most adaptable and hard-to-kill creatures on the planet.

Genetic selection has produced mosquitoes which know how to hide from fogging, and emerge earlier to feed- when people are not protected by bed nets or mosquito coils.

This begs the question: exactly how big is a mosquito brain and can we train it to take job briefs from clients?

Left alone to breed, a single female mosquito can produce, together with its offspring, as many 90 million mosquitoes in just 60 days.

That’s pretty scary. All around the world, we tried all kinds of ways to get rid of these pesky creatures: GMO mosquitos, mosquito-repelling plants, electric killer racquets and more. All of which produced some degree of success.

Within a couple of years however, mosquitoes are able to build up immunity against most, if not all, kinds of man-made anti-mosquito deterrents.

“The trick therefore,” says Dr Neil, “is to find a compound they will never develop immunity against: A cell from their own DNA.”

Answer

Trypsin Modulating Oostatic Factor (TMOF) is a protein found naturally inside an adult mosquito’s system.

When a female mosquito has taken enough blood, TMOF tells its body to stop digesting. Otherwise, the mosquito will become too heavy for its wings to carry.

After years of research, scientists have successfully extracted TMOF and fused it onto rice husks. Why rice husks?

Because rice floats and mosquito larvae are filter feeders- they hover near the surface of the water and devour whatever happens to be floating at the top.

Sort of like your colleague who’s always hungry and will eat cardboard if the office pantry is empty.

When larvae consume TMOF, it works exactly the same way: the creature feels full and stops eating.

Over the next few days, it dies of metabolic starvation. Scientists have added BTi, a natural larvicide that creates holes in the larva’s gut, onto the rice husk.

Combined with TMOF, the effect is said to be 35 times more potent than any other larvicide in the market.

The product is called Mousticide. The name itself is made up of two words: Mous (the French word for mosquito) and -cide (the act of killing).

In 2015/16, through a community programme called Komuniti Bebas Denggi, it saw a 54.7% reduction in dengue cases.

Will the scourge of dengue be finally eradicated within the next decade? It’s high time we stopped a black and white mosquito from stealing the colour in our lives.