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In my story,

Our world will be attacked by aliens. But before the attack they develop a biological weapon to weaken humans. They cultivate a very large numbers of mosquitoes, not ordinary mosquitoes, that can fly so fast, twice as fast as normal mosquitoes. These mosquitoes are also spreading quite fast. They lay eggs, the eggs become mosquitoes in only a day, and of course they cause disease to humans such as malaria, Zika, etc.

The good news is

these mosquitoes are very prone to viruses they bring, they become very weak

and the bad news is

their lifespan becomes longer (twice) after infected by the viruses.

What do we as humans have to do to control the spread of this kind of mosquitoes. What should humans do?

(Sorry for my bad English)

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  • $\begingroup$ Relevant: technologyreview.com/s/602304/… . $\endgroup$
    – Random
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 18:50
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    $\begingroup$ move somewhere cold and hope you survive the collapse of society. Mosquitoes that reproduce in a day would make people wish for a new outbreak of the black plague instead. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 20:08
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    $\begingroup$ Three letters: DDT (the insecticide, and also possibly the debugger and the testing methodology). $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 20:41
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    $\begingroup$ Please define "very weak" - to me that sounds as if the problem would solve itself soon. Why do you suspect that one needs to fight your mosquitoes differently than people already do - you only mention diseases we already have? How many did they release? How would that even weaken humans to an alien attack? Do you want to ask how one would kill as many mosquitoes as possible if one absolutely had to regardless of the consequences? You are asking about population control instead though which is already happening = no world building. This would also greatly differ depending on the region. $\endgroup$
    – Raditz_35
    Commented Jul 28, 2017 at 20:56

2 Answers 2

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I am encouraged by the stupidness of those aliens. We have been successfully defeating mosquitoes for a century. Humans have spectacular antimosquito tech. The USA eradicated malaria in the space of 4 years once it was decided to do that. The same is true for Europe.

These efforts used a lot of DDT (which still works great!), but 50 years prior, a dedicated mosquito control effort without DDT allowed the building of the Panama Canal.
http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion/panamacanal.html

In constructing the Panama Canal, American planners and builders faced challenges that went far beyond politics and engineering. The deadly endemic diseases of yellow fever and malaria were dangerous obstacles that had already defeated French efforts to construct a Panama Canal in the 1880s. The crippling effects of these diseases, which incapacitated many workers and caused at least 20,000 to die, led the French to abandon their goal in 1889.

For the later American effort, William Crawford Gorgas was appointed chief sanitary officer. His task was to prevent yellow fever and malaria infection among the laborers—a task that proved critical to American success.

We have even more tools now. Spray trucks and planes reduce mosquitoes to limit diseases like West Nile. Methoprene can be added as briquettes to water where mosquitoes breed, interefering with hormones and trapping them as juveniles - which is nice because fish eat them.

The problem with mosquitoes is now a third world problem, and as with most third world problems, really a problem of poverty and chaos. If mosquitoes were the advance guard of an alien invasion, there would be no shortage of money and political will. Concern about pelican eggs and wetland health would fall by the wayside. Those mosquitoes would be toast.

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    $\begingroup$ If the human race ever decides to do a thing, damn the consequences, then you can bet that thing is going to get done. $\endgroup$
    – Joe Bloggs
    Commented Jul 30, 2017 at 10:31
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Here's a clever idea that's being tested now: Link

Basically, cultivate a population of infected male mosquitoes that can only reproduce with similarly infected females. If the alien-generated mosquitoes aren't already infected with Wolbachia, this could work to at least slow them down.

Otherwise, you could come up with some other sort of mosquito disease that you seed into the populations. Actually, due to the precise nature of Wolbachia and the invasion, you would be best trying a different sort of disease. But if this disease can be transmitted to the mosquitoes children, then the rapidly-hatching egg advantage would be turned into a weapon against the mosquitoes.

This would have the least amount of dangerous side effects, while still being largely effective. Sure, this wouldn't be 100% effective, but it would at least buy time and limit the immediate damage.

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