FILARIASIS MOSQUITO

Press, Volume C, Issue 29507, 8 May 1961, Page 14

FILARIASIS MOSQUITO

Tokelau Is. Experiment (N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, May 7. An experiment arranged by the New Zealand Government and the World Health Organisation in the Tokelau Island has shown promising results in man’s fight against disease-carrying insects. The experiment - was carried out by Dr. Marshall Laird, of McGill University. Canada, and Dr. Donald Colless, of the University of Malaya, Singapore. Spread over two years, the experiment was designed to test whether a native Malayan parasite fungus when transferred to the Pacific could be used to infect the mosquito that transmits filariasis, a widespread disease that may take the form of elephantiasis. Drs. Laird and Colless attempted to reduce the number of mosquitos by infecting their larvae with a microscopic fungus. There was the possibility that once the fungus had taken hold it would perpetuate itself, infecting successive generations of larvae: reducing the size of the adult mosquito population and so limiting the spread of filariasis among human beings. In 1958, the two scientists introduced their infective material, brought from Singapore, in mosquito breeding places on one of the Tokelau atolls. In 1960. Dr. Laird returned to investigate the results. He recently went back to W.H.O headquarters with a report which, for a scientist, was optimistic: "The experiment is not discouraging.”