“A battle is underway against an invasive mosquito behind a recent surge in the local spread of dengue fever in Southern California — and officials may have unlocked a powerful tool to help win the day.

Two vector control districts — local agencies tasked with controlling disease-spreading organisms — released thousands of sterile male mosquitoes in select neighborhoods, with one district starting in 2023 and the other beginning the following year…

One agency serving a large swath of Los Angeles County found a nearly 82% reduction in its invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito population in its release area in Sunland-Tujunga last year compared with a control area.

Another district, covering the southwestern corner of San Bernardino County, logged an average decrease of 44% across several heavily infested places where it unleashed the sterile males last year, compared with pre-intervention levels.

Overall invasive mosquito counts dropped 33% across the district — marking the first time in roughly eight years that the population went down instead of up.”

From Los Angeles Times.