He said the pilot project, implemented in Section 7, Shah Alam, and AU2, Keramat, was still in the trial period.
The project aims to understand the behaviour of the disease-spreading mosquito species and whether it can reduce dengue cases.
“We are doing it on a trial basis until the end of next month at the two areas in Selangor before following up on the results.
“Once we know its effectiveness and the challenges, only then will we be able to arrive at a decision on whether it will be useful to release them in other places,” he told reporters after visiting the Buntong health clinic here today.
The minister said the dengue epidemic was predicted to increase around July or August this year.
He said Selangor recorded the highest number of dengue fever cases at 7,355 cases, including 12 deaths during the Jan 1-Feb 2 period, followed by Johor, with 2,379 cases.
The deployment of the Wolbachia micro-organism was introduced in January last year by the Institute for Medical Research, in collaboration with the Lancaster University, United Kingdom.
Last year, a Bernama report quoted Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah as saying that injecting the Wolbachia micro-organism into the Aedes aegypti mosquito eggs could prevent the spread of the dengue virus among humans.
He had said the eggs did not carry the dengue virus and thus prevented the spread of disease.