Some 6000 transgenic mosquitoes developed to help fight dengue were released in Malaysia on 21 December, according to a statement issued by the country’s Institute for Medical Research in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. Just like the first releases ever of the mosquitoes, on the Caribbean island of Grand Cayman in 2009 and 2010, the news came as a surprise both to opponents of the insects and to scientists who support them.

The Institute for Medical Research has completed one run of its field trial involving genetically-modified male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes at a forest near Bentong, Pahang. IMR director Dr Shahnaz Murad said the institute released about 6,000 GM mosquitoes at the site on Dec 21, along with a similar number of normal male mosquitoes. ”The experiment was successfully concluded on Jan 5,” she said in a press statement here yesterday.

The Consumers’ Association of Penang and Sahabat Alam Malaysia call upon the National Biosafety Board to revoke the approval given to the Institute for Medical Research in October 2010 to release genetically modified male aedes aegypti mosquitoes for the purpose of a field experiment. The applicant and implementer of the field trial is the IMR which had developed the GM mosquitoes in a joint research with UK-based biotech company Oxitec Ltd.

The rainy season in December prompted the postponement of the release of the genetically-modified Aedes aegypti mosquito in Bentong and Alor Gajah, said Biosafety Department official Dr Mohamed Mohamad Salleh on Wednesday. He denied that the delay had anything to do with protests from 23 local non-governmental organizations who had sent an open letter to the government in December protesting the plan to release of the GM mosquitoes.

The trial however prompted widespread concern among environmental groups, which asked the government to call off the tests, saying the GM mosquito could fail to prevent dengue and have unintended consequences. A senior official from the Biosafety Department told AFP that the trial, which was to be carried out in two Malaysian states, has been postponed pending further discussion with residents in the trial areas. ”There are a lot of protests. We are now aiming to carry out the trial in the first half of 2011,” said Mohamed Mohamad Salleh, the department’s director of research and evaluation.

The Department of Biosafety today dismissed as untrue an allegation that the Institute of Medical Research released genetically modified male mosquitoes last Wednesday at uninhabited sites in Malaysia. ”IMR did plan to release the mosquitoes on that date, but cancelled it,” said the department’s Director of Evaluation and Research, Dr Mohamed Mohd Salleh. He declined to explain the reasons for the cancellation. [...] According to Mohamed, IMR has yet to fix a new release date.

There exists a proven homegrown method of combating dengue that may be safer than releasing millions of genetically modified mosquitoes into the environment, as the government plans to do this month. The alternative method uses Mousticide, a product of Malaysian-based biotechnological company EntoGenex. It was tested in one of the country’s most dengue-prone areas early this year and the result was more than gratifying, the company’s chairman, Tunku Naquiyuddin Ja'afar, told FMT recently.

Concerned citizens who are against the proposed release of genetically modified male mosquitoes in certain parts of the country have started an online petition campaign to get their message across the nation. The online petition, titled ”No to the release of GM mosquitoes in Bentong and Alor Gajah”, was initiated by Cheah Hooi Giam from Penang and has so far garnered 290 signatories.

The current Malaysian Biosafety Act (which governs the GM Mosquitos release) is silent on the issue of Redress & Liability and it will probably be many more years before this Issue is incorporated into the act. Do the authorities expect Malaysian taxpayers to foot the bill in the event of untoward effects that might occur from the release of GM mosquitos?

The Federation of Malaysian Consumers Association has objected to the field tests for the transgenic or genetically modified male mosquitoes to control the population of aedes, saying that it is not confident in the effectiveness of the method. Its secretary-general, Muhammad Sha'ani Abdullah said the transgenic mosquito technology was still new in Malaysia and the genetically modified mosquito would probably turn into a more fierce disease vector or carrier.