Alternative vector control methods to manage the Zika virus outbreak : more haste, less speed – Authors' reply

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Abstract

In response to our Comment1 promoting the development of novel approaches to controlling Aedes aegypti, Christophe Boëte and R Guy Reeves argue for the continued reliance on current techniques—mosquito breeding site management and adulticidal spraying—to contain the current Zika virus outbreak. We agree that inclusion of these more traditional approaches might be justified as part of a wider, integrated, vector management programme. However, current vector control strategies for A aegypti do not appear to be stopping the rapid increase in the number of dengue cases in recent decades in Brazil (figure).2 These techniques have repeatedly proven inadequate in protecting contemporary Latin American populations. Even in well resourced mosquito control programmes, insecticides and breeding site management continue to fail in mitigating outbreaks. In Singapore, for example, a large increase in dengue incidence has been reported in the past 40 years3 despite decades of sustained and rigorously enforced national control campaigns.4 Globally, the number of dengue cases reported to WHO has increased steadily from an average of less than 1000 cases per year in the 1950s to more than 3 million cases per year in 2013.5

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