Figure 2.

Potential intervention points to block mosquito-borne disease transmission. Mosquito-borne diseases require incubation periods in both mosquito (extrinsic) and human (intrinsic) hosts. Blocking the cycle at any point will interrupt transmission. Multiple coordinated interventions will likely be needed to achieve effective and sustainable disease control. Potential interventions that could be implemented on the mosquito vector include: i) mosquito population reduction strategies (e.g. insecticide application, and the sterile insect technique), ii) mosquito lifespan reduction strategies (e.g. Wolbachia-associated lifespan reduction), and iii) pathogen transmission blocking in mosquitoes (e.g. population replacement gene drive systems, or population transfection with Wolbachia). Potential interventions that could be implemented on the human host include: i) human-mosquito contact reduction (e.g. insecticide-treated bed nets, and spatial repellents), and ii) pathogen transmission-blocking in humans using vaccines and prophylactic drugs, and iii) combination-therapy drugs. Reducing pathogen transmission, and hence the pathogen population size, reduces the ability of the pathogen to evolve resistance to effector genes.