Mosquito fish could help lick dengue
THE Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) seem convinced it has found an answer to the continuing havoc caused by dengue on the population, especially the young.
The answer lies in a tiny tropical fish, commonly found in the Philippines, known as mosquito fish (dombosia affinis), so called because it feeds on the larvae of mosquitoes.
Dr. Westly Rosario, chief of the Dagupan-based National Integrated Fisheries Technology Development (NIFTDC) under the BFAR, said this is not new as scientists around the world have used the mosquito fish in licking malaria, particularly from 1920 to 1950.
He explained that the mosquito fish can be redeployed in all stagnant waters in the Philippines to eradicate the mosquito population that carries the dengue virus.
The NIFTDC is now collecting mosquito fish and once they have enough stock, they will go to the different schools and put these in canals and ponds nearby to eat mosquito larvae.
Rosario said officials of a town in Ilocos just came from NIFTDC to ask for some mosquito fish to help fight dengue.
The mosquito fish, popularly known by its local names itar, milyon or kataba in Tagalog-speaking provinces of Luzon, can eat a larvae as heavy as its weight daily, which means a one-gram mosquito fish can consume a gram of larvae each day.
A female mosquito fish grows up to seven centimeters and five centimeters for the male.
The mosquito fish can also live in poor environmental conditions or in water that is shallow, murky, or with low dissolved oxygen.
Rosario said the mosquito fish can also eat organic matters as well as smaller mosquito fish.
REPRODUCTION
It also multiplies rapidly but unlike other fish, the mother lays eggs, eats the eggs, which then hatch internally and eventually come out.
Under this system of reproduction, said Rosario, there is a 100 percent chance that the eggs laid by the mother mosquito fish would live.
He added that a female mosquito fish mates once but it has the unique capacity to store male sperms in its system, so its reproduction continues even after laying the first eggs.
At the same time, Rosario underscored that the mosquito fish is edible.
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