The IAEA will evaluate the participation of Cuban experts in the regional program, aimed at boosting capacities in Latin America and the Caribbean to control the spread of zika.
According to AENTA (http://www.aenta.cu/), the UN agency is promoting the use of ionizing radiations as a technique to fight the aedes mosquito.
The program has been approved by the World Health Organization for a two year period with the participation of Cuban institutions, such as Havana's Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Institute, the Environmental Engineering and the Technological Applications and Nuclear Development centers based in the eastern Cuban province of Camaguey.
The initiative aims at the application of what is known as the Sterile Insect Technique, which sterilizes male mosquitoes through ionizing radiations, in order to reduce the mosquito population.
The technique has been proposed as another tool to fight the insects in Cuba, where actions have been intensified to fight the insect through epidemiological surveillance, fumigation home by home, and sanitary control. / ACN.