A new super-resistant mosquito which poses an “unprecedentedly serious threat” to efforts to curb dengue has been uncovered in southeast Asia.
Scientists tracking the emergence of insecticide-evading mutations in the dengue-spreading Aedes aegypti mosquito have found the “most resistant strain ever identified”, according to research published in Science Advances journal.
The strain – known as FTWC and so far found in Cambodia and Vietnam – is “very worrying” because it could render the pyrethroid insecticides used to kill mosquitoes increasingly ineffective.
