Submitted by the MVCAC VVBD Committee
HC Turner, et al. 2026. June 1, 2026. PLoS Neg. Trop. Dis. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0014395
Author summary
Dengue poses a growing global health threat, with nearly half the world’s population at risk. Among emerging control strategies, Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes offer a promising biocontrol approach—either by replacing local mosquito populations with less infectious ones or by suppressing mosquito numbers. We conducted the first scoping review of economic evaluations of Wolbachia-based interventions for dengue control, identifying nine studies published up to 29th of April 2024. Most focused on replacement strategies, particularly in large urban settings, and found these interventions to be cost-effective from a societal perspective. Our review highlights that the available economic evaluations consistently suggest that Wolbachia‑based replacement programmes are highly cost‑effective in high‑burden areas, where the intervention has the potential to generate substantial long‑term cost savings from a societal perspective in many settings. We also identify key drivers of variation across studies and provide recommendations to guide future economic evaluations in this field, emphasising the importance of reporting results in a disaggregated manner and making all underlying assumptions explicit.