MSF has been responding to dengue outbreaks in Honduras since 1998. These are growing increasingly severe, with emergency thresholds reaching alarming levels and more than 10,000 dengue cases reported each year. 



Current prevention tools are not sufficient to protect people from dengue, there are no specific treatments currently available and no vaccines have yet been produced that provide sufficient protection against infection. With the aim of finding better and more sustainable solutions to the growing global health challenge that dengue represents, MSF is undertaking new activities to prevent dengue transmission and other arboviruses. This includes deploying an innovative method to reduce the risk of dengue and other arboviruses, carried out in partnership with local communities, the Honduras Ministry of health and the World Mosquito Program. The method consists of releasing Aedes aegypti mosquitoes carrying the natural Wolbachia bacteria, which reduces mosquitoes’ ability to transmit arboviruses – with the aim to lower the number of people affected by dengue fever in the area. 



Dengue fever is an important global health threat. It is rapidly spreading with reported incidence increasing 30-fold over the past 50 years. Today, more than half the world’s population is at risk, and it is expected that another billion people will be exposed to dengue fever in coming decades due to climate change. (Population growth, the movement of people from rural areas to cities, more international travel and climate change have all increased the spread of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes - also causing an increasing number of people affected by mosquito-borne diseases.)  

  

This comms initiative is the first public communication about this project which is unprecedented for both MSF and local communities.