Australian scientists have developed a bacterium that will wipe out dengue fever.
The bacterium acts as a vaccine for mosquitoes, which could in turn stop the disease spreading in humans, the Australian Associated Press (AAP) reports.
Professor Scott O'Neill, from the University of Queensland, said he is "incredibly excited" as a 12-week field trial starts in the Cairns suburbs of Yorkeys Knob and Gordonvale in Queensland.
With up to 100 million people - largely from developing countries - being infected with dengue fever each year, a global solution was long overdue, he said.
Up to 40,000 people die because families in poorer nations are unable to seek health care.
Prof O'Neill said his project could become the safest and most cost-effective solution, eliminating the need for environmentally harmful insecticides.
"By April, we should know if we are on the right track or not, in our bid to stop the Aedes aegypti mosquito from being able to transmit the dengue virus between people," he told AAP. The field trial, beginning Tuesday, involves introducing strains of a naturally occurring bacterium called Wolbachia into the mosquito population.
Laboratory research has shown that Wolbachia acts like a vaccine for the mosquito, by monopolising resources needed by the dengue virus.
The Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes have been bred at James Cook University, Cairns.
"We have had a lot of global interest in this project," Prof O'Neill said.
"If those experiments are successful, then we might expect to see full implementation and control of dengue in the Cairns region in a two to four year timeframe.
The project is funded by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health as part of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative.
It also receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia as well as the Queensland Government.
