STRATEGIE INNOVATIVE PER IL CONTROLLO DI ZANZARE, VETTORI DI ORGANISMI PATOGENI

Abstract

Mosquitoes are the most dangerous insect species being the vectors of the pathogens causing the most widespread diseases as Malaria, Dengue fever, Chikungunya, West Nile fever, Yellow fever, Zika. Several species of the Anopheles, Aedes and Culex are responsable for millions of human infections causing hundreds of thousands of deaths per year. This causes dramatic socio-economic and health consequences, especially in developing countries. Harmful insects are controlled using chemical insecticides which cause insecticide resistance and environmental pollution, due to long term use. In the second half of the 20^th century, new insect environmentally safe control stategies were been developed, based on the insect’s reproductive behaviour. Notably, the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) has been successfully applied against some dipteran pest species in several regions of the World. It drived several research efforts to increase our knowledge of the biology of the harmful species. SIT improvements have been also achieved with several molecular biology approaches and transgene tech-nologies such as the innovative RIDL, cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) and gene drive.