Brazil is planning to fight the zika virus "by zapping millions of male mosquitoes with gamma rays to sterilize them and stop the spread of the virus linked to thousands of birth defects," according to Anthony Boadle of REUTERS.
Called an irradiator, the device "has been used to control fruit flies on the Portuguese island of Madeira." The Int'l Atomic Energy Agency said that on Monday "it will pay to ship the device to Juazeiro, in the northeastern state of Bahia, as soon as the Brazilian government issues an import permit."
Kostas Bourtzis, a molecular biologist with the IAEA's insect pest control laboratory, said, "It's a birth control method, the equivalent of family planning for humans." Bourtzis said that a Brazilian non-profit called Moscamed "will breed up to 12 million male mosquitoes a week and then sterilize them with the cobalt-60 irradiator, produced by Canadian company MDS Nordion."
The sterile males "will be released into target areas to mate with wild females who will lay eggs that produce no offspring" (REUTERS, 2/22).
