David Chen reported this story on Thursday, June 4, 2015 12:38:58

ELEANOR HALL: Scientists in Townsville say they have promising results from their bold trial designed to eradicate the deadly mosquito-borne disease, dengue fever.



The trial has involved the release of millions of specially bred mosquitoes across the North Queensland city as David Chen reports.



(Sound of popping)



RESEARCHER: Oh look, we've got a lot of skins in the water. It looks like everything has gone well.



DAVID CHEN: Hidden away in the front yard of a house in suburban Townsville is a small bucket that could hold the solution to ending dengue fever.



(Sound of water)



RESEARCHER: And got cleaner at the car.



DAVID CHEN: Researchers are checking on their specially bred mosquitoes to see if they've hatching and breeding with the wild population.



The mosquitoes carry the wolbachia bacteria which makes them less likely to transmit dengue.



Scientists had hoped the mosquitoes being released would pass on the bacteria, leading to the eradication of the deadly virus - dengue kills more than 10,000 people every year worldwide.



Over the past seven months, more than 2,000 Townsville residents, including Sharon Fuiamingo, have had a container placed in their backyards.



SHARON FUIAMINGO: Just basically they come and put it there and that's it. I don't have to do anything so it's very simple.



DAVID CHEN: She volunteered in the hope her children won't have to experience the disease's debilitating effects.



SHARON FUIAMINGO: I've had kids growing up in North Queensland all their life and there's always mosquitoes biting. You always have the fear that they're going to get something else along the line with dengue or Ross River or those sort of things. So anything that I can do to help to eliminate, I'm more than ready to do so.



DAVID CHEN: The Eliminate Dengue project is being run by a team of international researchers, including scientists from James Cook University and Melbourne University and has the backing from the Australian and Brazilian governments as well as groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.



The latest results show the trial is working as planned.



Dr Andrew Turley is the field trial manager for the Eliminate Dengue program.



ANDREW TURLEY: So what we're seeing at the moment is we're seeing the spread of the wolbachia bacteria increase and we're seeing the frequency, sorry how common this bacteria is in the local mosquito population increase over time.



DAVID CHEN: Data shows that in the suburbs where the insects were initially released, up to 80 per cent of mosquitoes now carry the bacteria.



Gary Eddiehausen is a local councillor and sits on the project's reference group.



He says the results are exciting.



GARY EDDIEHAUSEN: Dengue fever affects nearly 400 million people a year right throughout the world and if this trial is successful, it's certainly very exciting for what can happen right across the world in the future and reduce and if not totally get rid of dengue fever across the world.



DAVID CHEN: Dr Turley from Eliminate Dengue says while there are still years of analysis and research that needs to be done, the results show the project can be replicated across the country and the world.



ANDREW TURLEY: All our of previous field trials both in Australia and in different field sites around the world have always focused on sort of small individual suburb-wide trials whereas this is the first time where we've done a large chunk basically a city-wide, or a large, it's basically the inner city area of Townsville we've done a release in within only a few months period.



So it's really encouraging that potentially using wolbachia could be applied to some of these large cities around the world where the dengue version is much higher than what we have here in Australia.



ELEANOR HALL: That's Dr Andrew Turley ending David Chen's report.