There’s been a lot of buzz in North Texas about mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika, West Nile virus, and others that have sickened — or killed — scores of DFW residents in recent years, and public officials are constantly on the alert for innovative ways to combat the public health threat.

Harris County — that’s where Houston is — has asked for federal approval to conduct a pilot test of releasing thousands of genetically modified mosquitoes bred in a laboratory to destroy their own species —Aedes aegypti.

And, according to The Dallas Morning News, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins believes such a release in Dallas County might be a way to protect people across the region.

“It seems very promising to me that it would be a way to protect our people.”
Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins

“It seems very promising to me that it would be a way to protect our people,” he told the Morning News.

“We have a potential here to avoid future outbreaks and save lives,” Jenkins told the newspaper. “What’s not to like about that?”

If the feds approve Harris County’s request, it would mark the first urban area in the country to the use the technology, the Morning News said. Using the genetically modified mosquitoes has reduced populations of the species by more than 90 percent in parts of Panama, Brazil, and the Cayman Islands, the newspaper reported.

Oxitec, the British company that engineers the mosquitoes, received approval from three U.S. regulatory agencies to conduct its first U.S. trial this year in the Florida Keys.

Jenkins and Dallas County Health Director Zachary Thompson were impressed after meeting with Oxitec last year, and want to be the next big metro area line for a test, the Morning News reported.

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