Oxitec’s Friendly™ mosquito technology receives U.S. EPA approval for pilot projects in U.S.
May 1st, 2020 Announcement. We are delighted with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to grant Oxitec an Experimental Use Permit (EUP) for piloting its 2nd generation Friendly™ Aedes aegypti mosquito technology, the result of an in-depth and rigorous scientific review process that included technical support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and an expansive assessment of the technology and its safety relating to humans and the environment. The EPA’s media release is below.
Approval allows Oxitec to carry out demonstration projects with its safe, environmentally sustainable Aedes aegypti technology designed to control the mosquito that transmits dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) supported EPA’s scientific review of application.
Approval adds to U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA)’s ‘Finding of No Significant Impact’ on human, animals or the environment for Oxitec’s mosquito technology (2016) and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) approvals of field trials of two Oxitec agricultural pests.
Oxitec will continue regulatory approval processes with state regulatory agencies.
After more than a decade of successful deployments of Oxitec insect technologies worldwide, and driven by a team of experts from the US, the UK, Brazil, and a dozen other countries, Oxitec’s new Aedes aegypti technology represents a significant leap forward in efforts to provide municipalities and communities throughout the US with new, safe, sustainable and scalable tools to combat the growing threat posed by the invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits devastating diseases such as dengue, Zika and chikungunya in the U.S.
“Winning the growing war against disease-spreading mosquitoes will require a new generation of safe, targeted, and sustainable tools for governments and communities alike. And as we’re learning with the devastating COVID-19 crisis, it is critical to aggressively address global public health challenges head-on with a broad coalition of stakeholders. Our aim is to empower governments and communities of all sizes to effectively and sustainably control these disease-spreading mosquitoes without harmful impact on the environment and without complex, costly operations. The potential for our technology to do so is unmatched, and this EPA approval will allow us to take the first steps towards making it available in the US,” said Grey Frandsen, Oxitec’s CEO.
Oxitec has already completed successful deployments of this new Aedes aegypti technology in Brazil, demonstrating its ability to quickly and significantly suppress wild Aedes aegypti using easy-to-use, just-add-water deployment devices, thereby eliminating the need for costly production facilities and labor-intensive adult mosquito releases required by other insect-based technologies. This technology is designed to give governments and communities a powerful new solution that can scale effectively without the need for complex infrastructure and serve as a stand-alone solution or as a valuable component of integrated vector management programs.
“We are very thankful for the EPA’s efforts and we look forward to continuing our close collaboration. We will continue our work with state regulators in the coming months in their approval processes and with our local government and community partners as we move forward together,” said Frandsen. “This is an exciting development because it represents the ground-breaking work of hundreds of passionate people over more than a decade in multiple countries, all of whom want to protect communities from dengue, Zika, yellow fever, and other vector-borne diseases,” he said.
The EPA’s full media statement is here:
EPA Approves Experimental Use Permit to Test Innovative Biopesticide Tool to Better Protect Public Health
Today, after extensive evaluation of the best available science and public input, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted an experimental use permit (EUP) to Oxitec Ltd. to field test the use of genetically engineered Aedes aegypti mosquitoes as a way to reduce mosquito populations to protect public health from mosquito-borne illnesses.
To meet today’s public health challenges head-on, the nation needs to facilitate innovation and advance the science around new tools and approaches to better protect the health of all Americans. After all appropriate approvals are garnered, EPA looks forward to receiving field test results regarding the effectiveness of this promising new tool that could help combat the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like the Zika virus.
The EUP is designed to test the effectiveness of genetically engineered Aedes aegypti mosquitoes as a way to reduce mosquito populations in a controlled environment with appropriate safeguards as a first step to potentially wider use in the United States. The company must receive state and local approval before proceeding with field testing.
Oxitec’s carefully developed field tests will be conducted, if approved by state and local authorities, over a two-year period in Monroe County, Florida, beginning in summer 2020, and in Harris County, Texas, beginning in 2021.
During these field tests, Oxitec will release into the environment male mosquitoes genetically modified to carry a protein that will inhibit the survival of their female offspring when they mate with wild female mosquitoes. The male offspring will survive to become fully functional adults with the same genetic modification, providing multi-generational effectiveness that could ultimately lead to a reduction in Aedes aegypti mosquito populations in the release areas. EPA anticipates that this could be an effective tool to combat the spread of certain mosquito-borne diseases like the Zika virus in light of growing resistance to current insecticides.
Since only male mosquitoes will be released into the environment and they do not bite people, they will not pose a risk to people. It is also anticipated that there would be no adverse effects to animals such as bats and fish in the environment.
Oxitec is required to monitor and sample the mosquito population weekly in the treatment areas to determine how well the product works for mosquito control and to confirm that the modified genetic traits disappear from the male Aedes aegypti mosquito population over time. EPA has also maintained the right to cancel the EUP at any point during the 24-month period if unforeseen outcomes occur.
EPA’s decision and the approved permit are available in Regulations.gov in Docket ID EPA-HQ-OPP-2019-0274.
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