Journal or Publishing Institution: (Master's thesis, Brazil).
Study: https://repositorio.ufrn.br/jspui/bitstream/123456789/28230/1/Controledengueatraves_Queiroz_2019.pdf
Author(s): Queiroz, J.D.G.
Article Type: Study
Abstract:
Dengue is a viral disease that spreads more rapidly in the world. Fighting the spread of its
vector, the Aedes aegypti mosquito, represents a complex problem not only in Brazil, but
also around the world. Given the persistence of the problem, resulting from the inefficiency
of conventional methods, some municipalities have adopted innovative biological control
strategies. Among them is the release of the genetically modified mosquito, (called
OX513A), a lineage of male mosquitoes developed by the company Oxitec, in which the
offspring of mating between the transgenic mosquitoes and the savages inherit a lethal gene
and do not survive adult life. The strategy has already been implemented in the municipalities
of Juazeiro/BA, Jacobina/BA, Piracicaba/SP, Juiz de Fora/MG and Indaiatuba/SP. In the
present study, we evaluate the impact of this strategy on the incidence of dengue in the first
three municipalities to receive treatment in Brazil, through the synthetic control method of
Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003), which allows the construction of a counterfactual for the
treated municipalities through the optimal weighting of municipalities that did not adopt the
strategy. The notifications of dengue cases per semester of the Brazilian municipalities was
used as a variable of interest and as predictors were used the Human Development Index
(HDI), demographic density and water supply. These data were, respectively, extracted from
the Sistema de Informação de Agravos de Notificação (SINAN), the website of Programa
das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD), Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e
Estatística (IBGE) and Sistema Nacional de Informações sobre Saneamento (SNIS). The
results showed that it was not possible to detect impact on the strategy of mosquito release
in the municipalities analyzed. To evaluate the robustness of this result, we also used the
synthetic control method of Brodersen et al. (2015), which confirmed previous results.
Keywords: Dengue, Aedes aegypti, Genetically modified mosquitoes, Impact Evaluation, Synthetic control method, OX51`3A, Genetically engineered mosquito
Citation:
Queiroz, J.D.G., 2019. Dengue control through the strategy of release of genetically modified Aedes Aegypti: impact assessment from the synthetic control method (Master’s thesis, Brazil).
