Source: Zhongshan School of Medicine
Written by: Zhongshan School of Medicine
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

The international workshop on Wolbachia-based dengue and malaria control has been successfully held at Guangzhou south campus of Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) on 20-22 October, 2018. The workshop was co-organized by the Key Laboratory for Tropical Disease Control, Ministry of Education, SYSU; the SYSU-Michigan State University (MSU) Joint Center of Vector Control for Tropical Diseases, Zhongshan School of Medicine; the Guangdong Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center for Diseases-vectors Control, SYSU; the Guangdong Parasitology Society and the MSU.

To promote the cooperation between the SYSU and MSU, Professor Xiao Haipeng, Vice President of SYSU, cordially met with Dr. DeAndra Beck, Associate Dean for Research of International Studies and Programs of MSU, and Prof. David DeWitt, Associate Dean for Research of College of Natural Science of MSU. The two sides highly appreciated the co-scientific achievements made by SYSU and MSU in the past seven years, and further explored the global promotion of mosquito vector control based on Wolbachia technology.

Before the workshop, Prof. Wu Zhongdao, Acting Dean of Zhongshan School of Medicine, gave an opening speech and welcomed all the participants. Further, he introduced the general information about SYSU and emphasized the importance of the workshop on vector-disease control. Subsequently, Dr. DeAndra Beck, Prof. David DeWitt and Dr. Manju Rahi, Deputy Director of the Department of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases of the Ministry of Health/National Medical Research Council of India, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony, respectively. Similarly, Prof. Xi Zhiyong, Director of the Key Laboratory for Tropical Disease Control, Ministry of Education, SYSU, and the SYSU-MSU Joint Center of Vector Control for Tropical Diseases, Zhongshan School of Medicine, gave a comprehensive presentation on Wolbachia-based mosquito control in Guangzhou, China. The results indicated that the dengue-vector (Aedes albopictus) mosquito population has been completely eliminated in two islands by the application of Wolbachia technology in the past three years. The participants highly praised the results obtained so far in China. During the workshop, the participants also visited the largest mosquito factory and the field mosquito release sites in China. Some participants also shared their researches and further recommendations on the application of Wolbachia technology to control the malaria-vector Anopheles mosquito population in India. In addition, meaningful comments and suggestions have been proposed on the global collaboration to control both dengue and malaria vectors by Wolbachia.

After the workshop, an international collaboration team including the SYSU, MSU, Indian National Institute of Malaria Research, and Johns Hopkins University has been successfully formed to develop Wolbachia to control malaria-vector in India. This coordinated project promotes the technical export on malaria and dengue control from China to those countries along the “One Belt One Road”, and enhances the international impact of SYSU in tropical disease control.