MosqGuide: A project to develop best practice guidance for the deployment of innovative genetic vector control strategies for malaria and dengue

The World Health Organisation Special Programme in Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (WHO/TDR) has funded a project, designated MosqGuide, to develop guidance on the potential deployment of different types of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes to control vector borne diseases, specifically malaria and dengue. This guidance is intended to support disease endemic countries (DECs) and other stakeholders in considering the safety and legal/regulatory aspects, as well as ethical, cultural and social issues, of such deployment. Commissioned in 2008 as a three year project, MosqGuide will result in a series of best practice documents developed by the project's international team of experts in regulation, vector control and management, arthropod molecular biology, social sciences and environmental risk assessment. Using fundamental principles of risk/benefit as a foundation, the MosqGuide project will prepare guidance as a series of modules aimed at different user groups, including researchers, regulators, public health officials, funding bodies and interested public. Each module will be tested with target audiences, primarily regulators and decision makers in the DECs, and will also feed into other WHO initiatives, such as the Regional Biosafety Training Centres for GM Vectors. The guidance will also include a module that demonstrates a prototype issues/response model to assist DECs in making an informed choice about whether and under what conditions to deploy specific genetic control methods for the control of mosquito vectors for malaria and dengue.