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En reviewartikel om den nye danske Platon-oversættelse Platon III. Samlede værker i ny oversættelse. Hipparchos, Rivalerne, Theages, Charm-ides, Laches, Lysis, Euthydemos, Protagoras, Gorgias, Menon, Den store Hippias, Den lille Hippias. Udgivet af Jørgen Mejer og Chr. Gorm Tortzen. (Gyldendal, 2011) Platon IV. Samlede værker i ny oversættelse. Ion, Menexenos, Kleitophon, Staten I-X, Timaios, Kritias, Minos. Udgivet af Jørgen Mejer og Chr. Gorm Tortzen. (Gyldendal, 2013)

Anmeldelser af Euseb, Kirkehistorien, og Om dem, der led martyrdøden i Palæstina. Oversættelse og indledninger ved Jørgen Ledet Christiansen og Helge Kjær Nielsen; Carsten Bach-Nielsen, Per Ingesman, Niels Arne Pedersen & Jens Holger Schjørring, Kirkens historie, bind 1-2; Gunnar W. Knutsen, Religionskrig i Europa 1450-1700

Summary: A 17-year-old healthy woman treated for unilateral hypoplastic breast anomaly with Brava-assisted fat grafting experienced persistent reduced pigmentation of the areola on the treated breast. The reduced pigmentation was confirmed at 6-month postoperative follow-up and verified by histological examination of comparable biopsies from both areolas.

En reviewartikel af Per Bilde, Hvor original var Jesus? (Anis, 2011)

Anmeldelser af Bernhard Lang, Jesus - en jødisk kynikers liv og lære; Enno Edzard Popkes & Gregor Wurst, eds., Judasevangelium und Codes Tchacos; Jørgen Ledet Christiansen, Niels Hyldahl & Mogens Müller, Justins dialog med jøden Tryfon; Catharina Raudvere & Jens Peter Schjødt, eds., More than Mythology. Narratives, Ritual Practices and Regional Distribution in pre-Christian Scandinavian Religions

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The collective work The Axial Age and Its Consequences contains contributions by Charles Taylor, Merlin Donald, Shmuel N. Eisenstad, Jan Assmann and others to important discussions before, around and after Robert Bellah's Religion and Human Evolution. The article presents and discusses the indi-vidual contributions. DANSK RESUMÉ: I samleværket The Axial Age and Its Consequences er samlet bidrag af Charles Taylor, Merlin Donald, Shmuel N. Eisenstad, Jan Assmann og flere andre til vigtige debatter forud for, parallelt med og opfølgende på Robert Bellahs Religion and Human Evolution. Artiklen præseterer og diskuterer værkets bidrag.

Redaktionelt forord om dette nummers tema: Robert Bellah, religionshistorie og kulturel evolution

The numbers of divers, ducks, gulls, terns and waders in the 15 km2 oligotrophic lake Takvatn, North Norway were estimated six times during 1983-2012. Systematic mapping surveys were done by boat within the first week after ice-break in June. Twenty-one species were observed over the years and 12 were regarded as breeding on the lake. Red-breasted merganser Mergus serrator was the dominant diving bird, with estimated minimum number of pairs varying from 15 to 39 among years. Black-throated diver Gavia arctica (1-3 pairs), tufted duck Aythya fuligula (2-15 pairs) and common scoter Melanitta nigra (1-5 pairs) bred regularly, while velvet scoter Melanitta fusca (1-2) and goldeneye Bucephala clangula (2-4) were found in some years and mallard Anas platyrhynchos (1 pair) and wigeon Anas penelope (1 pair) in one year. Common gull Larus canus (6-30 pairs) and arctic tern Sterna paradisaea (2-35 pairs) bred in all years. Common sandpiper Tringa hypoleucos (3-9 pairs) and redshank Tringa totanus (1-4 pairs) were regular waders. Density variations of mergansers, gulls and terns are possibly related to density variations of three-spined sticklebacks Gasterosteus aculeatus, their dominant fish prey. The water birds are important links in the food web of the lake.

FRÅN REDAKTIONEN Teologins många uppgifter ARTIKLAR Anders Klostergaard Petersen: Ritualet og dets betydning i den aktuelle forkyndelse Stefan Eriksson: Jesu uppståndelse som filosofiskt problem DEBATT Arne Rasmusson: Utan kyrka ingen kristen etik. Arne Rasmusson svarar Göran Bexell Elisabeth Gerle: Det finns flera perspektiv DISKUSSIONSINLÄGG Arne Claesson: Olov Hartmans kallelse LITTERATUR J.S. Cooper och G.M. Schwartz (red.): The Study of the Ancient Near East in the Twenty-First Century. The William Foxwell Albright Centennial Conference. Anm. av Tryggve N. D. Mettinger Aage Pilgaard: Dødehavsskrifterne og det Det ny Testamente. Anm. av Håkan Ulfgard René Kieffer, Ezra Gebremedhin, Sven-Erik Brodd, Lars Lindberg, Ulla Marie Gunner, Carl Henrik Martling, Per-Olov Ahrén, Per Erik Persson, Åke Jonsson, Krister Stendahl & Inger Johnsson: Nattvardens teologi. Anm. av Birger Olsson Catharina Stenqvist: NU – är verklig. Thomas Merton och kontemplativa erfarenheter. Anm. av Henning E. Sandström Sven-Eric Liedman: I skuggan av framtiden. Modernitetens idéhistoria. Anm. av Ola Sigurdson RESUMÉ AV DOKTORSAVHANDLING Runar Eldebo: Den ensamma tron. En studie i Frank Mangs predikan AKTUELLT Nordisk systematikerkonferens 1998 Akademi för teologi 1997

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I forlængelse af David Brakkes nyligt udgivne og for gnosis-forskningen meget væsentlige bog, The Gnostics. Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity, præsenterer jeg en state of the art-artikel i forhold til de sidste 15 års drøftelse af emnet. Brakke fremhæves for hans forsøg på at komme hinsides den begrebs–eliminativisme, som både Michael Williams’ og Karen Kings arbejder repræsenterer. Skønt jeg forholder mig kritisk til Bentley Laytons og Brakkes forsøg på på et emic niveau at identificere gnosis med sethiansk gnosis, anerkender jeg, at der er tale om en forbedring i forhold til Williams og King. Omvendt argumenterer jeg for alene at anvende gnosis-kategorien på et etic niveau, som sætter os i stand til at se både valentinianisme og sethianisme som ikke alene forskellige manifestationer af samme fænomen, men også som nært beslægtet med fænomener inden for det, vi traditionelt forstår som mere mainstream former for kristendom.

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Min artikel har en eksplorativ karakter. Den er et forsøg på at komme til klarhed over fænomenet kætteri. Frem for som i den altdominerende strømning i moderne forskningshistorie at gøre kætteri til en kristen opfindelse argumenterer jeg for at se det i sammenhæng med aksetidsproblemstillingen og i særdeleshed i overgangen fra en lokativisk til en utopisk religionsform. Jeg hævder, at man kan finde paralleller i de græsk-romerske medicinske og filosofiske skoledannelser. Afslutningsvis argumenterer jeg for forståelsen af kætteri som tredje-ordens-begreb, der forudsætter en kontekst, hvor forskellige, men beslægtede retninger inden for samme overordnede bevægelse gør krav på samme diskursive rum med en simultan afskrivning af rivaliserende strømninger som mangelfulde. Ortodoksi udspringer i den sammenhæng af en institutionel, retorisk positionering, som lukker den historiske situations åbenhed gennem semiotisk fastfrysning af en bestemt tegnfortolkning (inkl. social/rituel praksis) med tilsvarende udsondring af rivaliserende tegnfortolkninger (inkl. social/rituel praksis).

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En review-artikel af Todd Penner og Caroline vander Stichele (eds.), Mapping Gender in Ancient Discourses, BIS 84, Leiden/Boston, Brill 2007

Review-artikel

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Artiklen tegner med udgangspunkt i The Cambridge History of Christianity 1. Origins to Constantine et billede af det paradigmeskift, der i løbet af de sidste 25 år er sket i forskningen i tidlig kristendom. Samtidig peger artiklen på en række centrale nybrud, der illustrerer forskellen i forhold til den tidligere forskning. Det drejer sig om relationen mellem tidlig kristendom og jødedom; opgøret med kulturel ‘kassetænkning’ og essentialisme i rekonstruktionen af tidlig kristendom; fremhævelsen af mangfoldighed og opløsning af kategorierne ortodoksi og heterodoksi; opløsningen af gnosisbegrebet; et øget fokus på regionale studier; besindelse på mentalitetshistorisk arbejde. Den anmeldte bog fremhæves – trods mangler – som den på markedet bedste, hvis man vil have grundig information om og præsentation af, hvor forskningen i tidlig kristendom aktuelt befinder sig.

Jesper Sørensens bog, A Cognitive Theory of Magic, er et banebrydende arbejde i nyere religionsvidenskab og antropologi. Mens der de seneste år i forskningen har været en stærk tendens til at opgive magibegrebet ud fra en tanke om, at det alene er en social-relationel kategori, der bruges som led i egen identitetskonstruktion til at afvise de former for kult, man ikke selv bryder sig om, går Jesper Sørensen en anden vej. Han genopliver ikke alene magibegrebet ved at indsætte det i en kognitionsteoretisk ramme, men han dokumenterer også overbevisende, hvorfor antropologi og religionsvidenskab ikke kan være kategorien foruden. Samtidig peger bogen på en række løsninger af klassiske problemer i religionsvidenskab og antropologi. Review-artiklen giver en udførlig præsentation af bogen, der ikke alle steder er lige let læsning for folk uden for det kognitionsteoretiske formskærerlaug. Bogen viser imidlertid tydeligt, hvorfor de af os, som primært arbejder med tekstanalyse, historiske rekonstruktioner eller religionssociologi og religionsfilosofi, ikke kan ignorere den stadig mere ekspanderende kognitionsteoretiske religionsvidenskab.

Intet resumé.

'Balkanisering'; Rekonstruktion af kulturer

Artiklen drøfter, i hvilken forstand og under hvilke præmis­ser kristendommen – i skikkelse af evangelisk-luthersk kristendom – kan siges at bidrage positivt til den moderne danske velfærdsstats sammenhængs­kraft. Den principielle adskillelse mellem religion og politik fremhæves som et gode, ligesom der argumenteres for, at det system, velfærdsstaten bygger på, er blevet til gennem en sekularisering af et kristent værdiunivers. Det pointeres, at velfærdsstaten som system er sårbar, dels fordi den grundlæggende bygger på symbolsk kommunikation, dels fordi den ikke har andet end sig selv at henvise til. I den sammenhæng fremhæves det, at religion – i konteksten evangelisk-luthersk kristendom – kan bidrage positivt til velfærdsstaten, fordi den supplerer de basale principper og værdier, velfærdsstaten er bygget op om, ved at forankre dem i en religiøs tydning, der ikke tillader relativeringer.

Divination and mantics play a decisive role in ancient as well as modern religiosity. Although the subjects are not an integral part of the current curriculums for theology and the study of religion, they are pivotal for understanding religion and religious practices, especially of the ancient world. In this paper, which is the first part of a larger research project on divination and mantics of early Christianity and ancient Judaism, I explore one particular form of mantics: rhapsodomantics, i.e. divination by means of Sacred Books that are either randomly opened or used in order to provide ‘slips’ upon which verses from the Books in question are written. The randomly chosen textual passage is secondarily interpreted and explained in terms of a divinely inspired guidance. In this manner the lot oracle provides access to the understanding of the divine world. The ritual consultance of lot oracles is simultaneously a way of domesticising the contingency and arbitrariness of life. By means of a ritually staged display of arbitrariness (the random drawing of lots), arbitrariness is mastered. First – based on recent insights from the field of cognitive science (primarily Whitehouse and Boyer), semiotics, the tradition of sociology of knowledge and ritual studies – I discuss imagistic thought in contrast to doctrinaire modes of religiosity. Second, I scrutinize the ritual raison d’être for divination and mantics. The second part of the paper presents an analysis of numerous texts exemplifying rhapsodomantics. In a recent book by the Swedish novelist P.O. Enquist Lewis Rejse, narrating the founding of the Pentecostal Church of Sweden, the ritual practice of using ‘Thumble verses’ and ‘Manna seeds’ plays a decisive role in the founding of the community. As a point of departure relevant excerpts from this book are discussed in order to travel back to the Märchenland of the ancient world. Numerous Greco-Roman, Jewish and Early Christian examples of rhapsodomantics are discussed and related to recent analyses by van der Horst and Potter.

This essay - representing an elaborated version of the author's inaugural lecture as an associate professor at the Department of the Study of Religion - is a critical survey of the classical scholarly discussion of Hellenism that particularly focuses on the Judaism-Hellenism dichotomy. By an exposition of the intellectual history of the background to the debate (notably Droysen), the author argues that the discussion has to a great extent been subject to the influence of a perceptual filter, representing a Christian apologietic concern - the scope of which is not fully recognised. Hellenism has served as a significant flottant capable of being attributed almost any meaning, but ultimately the category itself stems from a Christian concern, i.e. to construct a period serving as a legitimising cultural and religio-historical foilage for the appearance of early Christianity. Although some important cultural changes do occur subsequent to Alexander the Great (an increased tendency towards urbanisation, important military innovation, for example), they do not constitute tendencies that may be extended to include a universal sultural watershed common to the entire Mediterranean and extra-Mediterranian world and uniting it across the centuries. In addition to that, the discussion is suffering from a deficient interpretation of culture and identity. tghe meeting of different cultures and the confusions of different cultural traditions are perceived in terms of 'pure cultures'. Culture is ontologised or naturalised to the exten that a meeting of cultures is conceived of in terms of separate and fundamentally different cultures that are simultaneously understood to be internally homogenous. Each person is thought to be a carrier or container of his or her culture, thus for instance the Jew incarnating or representing Judaism in its entirelt. From this perspective divergent, modes of dultures are perceived in terms of cultural or religious contaminataion. Culture, however, does not exist - except as an abstraction - in such pure forms. It is per definition a messy affair. In conclusion I think that in future research we should refrain from using the category of Hellenism is the all-sweeping manner in which it has been used. In fact we should be very careful, when using Judaism, Hellenism or any other taxonomic abstraction, not to commit an 'ontological dumping', reifying concepts which exist only by virtue of scholarly categorisations. Rather than to continue to use a misunderstandable term and an ideologically biased category strongly dependent on a Christian perceptual filter, we should begin looking for the decisive innovations, the important cultural and religious changes, which at particular places and in specific periods may allow us to construe cultural watersheds.

The purpose of the article is to present a ritual-theoretic reading of an important Pauline baptismal text thereby gaining not only a deeper understanding of the Pauline baptismal references but also a more profound knowledge of the Pauline theology in toto. On the basis of van Gennep's essential work "The Rites of Passage", a heuristic definition of initiation is developed and applied to Romans 6:1-14.

The intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis of the Applying Wolbachia to Eliminate Dengue (AWED) trial estimated a protective efficacy of 77.1% for participants resident in areas randomised to receive releases of wMel-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, an emerging dengue preventive intervention. The limiting assumptions of ITT analyses in cluster randomised trials and the mobility of mosquitoes and humans across cluster boundaries indicate the primary analysis is likely to underestimate the full public health benefit. Using spatiotemporally-resolved data on the distribution of Wolbachia mosquitoes and on the mobility of AWED participants (n = 6306), we perform complier-restricted and per-protocol re-examinations of the efficacy of the Wolbachia intervention. Increased intervention efficacy was estimated in all analyses by the refined exposure measures. The complier-restricted analysis returned an estimated efficacy of 80.7% (95% CI 65.9, 89.0) and the per-protocol analysis estimated 82.7% (71.7, 88.4) efficacy when comparing participants with an estimated wMel exposure of ≥ 80% compared to those with <20%. These reanalyses demonstrate how human and mosquito movement can lead to underestimation of intervention effects in trials of vector interventions and indicate that the protective efficacy of Wolbachia is even higher than reported in the primary trial results., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Pacific Island countries have experienced periodic dengue, chikungunya and Zika outbreaks for decades. The prevention and control of these mosquito-borne diseases rely heavily on control of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which in most settings are the primary vector. Introgression of the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia pipientis (wMel strain) into Ae. aegypti populations reduces their vector competence and consequently lowers dengue incidence in the human population. Here we describe successful area-wide deployments of wMel-infected Ae. aegypti in Suva, Lautoka, Nadi (Fiji), Port Vila (Vanuatu) and South Tarawa (Kiribati). With community support, weekly releases of wMel-infected Ae. aegypti mosquitoes for between 2 to 5 months resulted in wMel introgression in nearly all locations. Long term monitoring confirmed a high, self-sustaining prevalence of wMel infecting mosquitoes in almost all deployment areas. Measurement of public health outcomes were disrupted by the Covid19 pandemic but are expected to emerge in the coming years., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Simmons et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Dengue is the most important arboviral disease globally and poses ongoing challenges for control including in non-endemic countries with competent mosquito vectors at risk of local transmission through imported cases. We examined recent epidemiological trends in imported and locally acquired dengue in Australia, where the Wolbachia mosquito population replacement method was implemented throughout dengue-prone areas of northern Queensland between 2011 and 2019., Methods: We analysed dengue cases reported to the Australian National Notifiable Disease Surveillance System between January 2012 and December 2022, and Australian traveller movement data., Results: Between 2012 and 2022, 13 343 dengue cases were reported in Australia (median 1466 annual cases); 12 568 cases (94.2%) were imported, 584 (4.4%) were locally acquired and 191 (1.4%) had no origin recorded. Locally acquired cases decreased from a peak in 2013 (n = 236) to zero in 2021-22. Annual incidence of imported dengue ranged from 8.29/100 000 (n = 917 cases) to 22.10/100 000 (n = 2203) annual traveller movements between 2012 and 2019, decreased in 2020 (6.74/100 000 traveller movements; n = 191) and 2021 (3.32/100 000 traveller movements; n = 10) during COVID-19-related border closures, then rose to 34.79/100 000 traveller movements (n = 504) in 2022. Imported cases were primarily acquired in Southeast Asia (n = 9323; 74%), Southern and Central Asia (n = 1555; 12%) and Oceania (n = 1341; 11%). Indonesia (n = 5778; 46%) and Thailand (n = 1483; 12%) were top acquisition countries. DENV-2 (n = 2147; 42%) and DENV-1 (n = 1526; 30%) were predominant serotypes., Conclusion: Our analysis highlights Australia's successful control of locally acquired dengue with Wolbachia. Imported dengue trends reflect both Australian travel destinations and patterns and local epidemiology in endemic countries., (© International Society of Travel Medicine 2024. Published by Oxford University Press.)

Background: Releases of Wolbachia ( w Mel)-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes significantly reduced the incidence of virologically confirmed dengue in a previous cluster randomised trial in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia. Following the trial, w Mel releases were extended to the untreated control areas, to achieve city-wide coverage of Wolbachia., Objective: In this predefined analysis, we evaluated the impact of the wMel deployments in Yogyakarta on dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) case notifications and on the frequency of perifocal insecticide spraying by public health teams., Methods: Monthly counts of DHF cases notified to the Yogyakarta District Health Office between January 2006 and May 2022 were modelled as a function of time-varying local wMel treatment status (fully- and partially-treated vs untreated, and by quintile of wMel prevalence). The frequency of insecticide fogging in wMel-treated and untreated areas was analysed using negative binomial regression., Results: Notified DHF incidence was 83% lower in fully treated vs untreated periods (IRR 0.17 [95% CI 0.14, 0.20]), and 78% lower in areas with 80-100% wMel prevalence compared to areas with 0-20% w Mel (IRR 0.23 [0.17, 0.30]). A similar intervention effect was observed at 60-80% wMel prevalence as at 80-100% prevalence (76% vs 78% efficacy, respectively). Pre-intervention, insecticide fogging occurred at similar frequencies in areas later randomised to wMel-treated and untreated arms of the trial. After w Mel deployment, fogging occurred significantly less frequently in treated areas (IRR 0.17 [0.10, 0.30])., Conclusions: Deployments of w Mel-infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes resulted in an 83% reduction in the application of perifocal insecticide spraying, consistent with lower dengue case notifications in wMel-treated areas. These results show that the Wolbachia intervention effect demonstrated previously in a cluster randomised trial was also measurable from routine surveillance data.

Background: The wMel strain of Wolbachia has been successfully introduced into Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and has been shown to reduce the transmission of dengue and other Aedes-borne viruses. Here we report the entomological results from phased, large-scale releases of Wolbachia infected Ae. aegypti mosquitoes throughout three contiguous cities located in the Aburrá Valley, Colombia., Methodology/principal Findings: Local wMel Wolbachia-infected Ae. aegypti mosquitoes were generated and then released in an initial release pilot area in 2015-2016, which resulted in the establishment of Wolbachia in the local mosquito populations. Subsequent large-scale releases, mainly involving vehicle-based releases of adult mosquitoes along publicly accessible roads and streets, were undertaken across 29 comunas throughout Bello, Medellín and Itagüí Colombia between 2017-2022. In 9 comunas these were supplemented by egg releases that were undertaken by staff or community members. By the most recent monitoring, Wolbachia was found to be stable and established at consistent levels in local mosquito populations (>60% prevalence) in the majority (67%) of areas., Conclusion: These results, from the largest contiguous releases of wMel Wolbachia mosquitoes to date, highlight the operational feasibility of implementing the method in large urban settings. Based on results from previous studies, we expect that Wolbachia establishment will be sustained long term. Ongoing monitoring will confirm Wolbachia persistence in local mosquito populations and track its establishment in the remaining areas., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Velez et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: The introduction of Wolbachia (wMel strain) into Aedes aegypti mosquitoes reduces their capacity to transmit dengue and other arboviruses. Randomised and non-randomised studies in multiple countries have shown significant reductions in dengue incidence following field releases of wMel-infected Ae. aegypti. We report the public health outcomes from phased, large-scale releases of wMel-Ae. aegypti mosquitoes throughout three contiguous cities in the Aburrá Valley, Colombia., Methodology/principal Findings: Following pilot releases in 2015-2016, staged city-wide wMel-Ae. aegypti deployments were undertaken in the cities of Bello, Medellín and Itagüí (3.3 million people) between October 2016 and April 2022. The impact of the Wolbachia intervention on dengue incidence was evaluated in two parallel studies. A quasi-experimental study using interrupted time series analysis showed notified dengue case incidence was reduced by 95% in Bello and Medellín and 97% in Itagüí, following establishment of wMel at ≥60% prevalence, compared to the pre-intervention period and after adjusting for seasonal trends. A concurrent clinic-based case-control study with a test-negative design was unable to attain the target sample size of 63 enrolled virologically-confirmed dengue (VCD) cases between May 2019 and December 2021, consistent with low dengue incidence throughout the Aburrá Valley following wMel deployments. Nevertheless, VCD incidence was 45% lower (OR 0.55 [95% CI 0.25, 1.17]) and combined VCD/presumptive dengue incidence was 47% lower (OR 0.53 [95% CI 0.30, 0.93]) among participants resident in wMel-treated versus untreated neighbourhoods., Conclusions/significance: Stable introduction of wMel into local Ae. aegypti populations was associated with a significant and sustained reduction in dengue incidence across three Colombian cities. These results from the largest contiguous Wolbachia releases to-date demonstrate the real-world effectiveness of the method across large urban populations and, alongside previously published results, support the reproducibility of this effectiveness across different ecological settings., Trial Registration: NCT03631719., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Velez et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Introduction: Field trials and modelling studies suggest that elimination of dengue transmission may be possible through widespread release of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the insect bacterium Wolbachia pipientis ( w Mel strain), in conjunction with routine dengue control activities. This study aimed to develop a modelling framework to guide planning for the potential elimination of locally acquired dengue in Yogyakarta, a city of almost 400 000 people in Java, Indonesia., Methods: A scenario-tree modelling approach was used to estimate the sensitivity of the dengue surveillance system (including routine hospital-based reporting and primary-care-based enhanced surveillance), and time required to demonstrate elimination of locally acquired dengue in Yogyakarta city, assuming the detected incidence of dengue decreases to zero in the future. Age and gender were included as risk factors for dengue, and detection nodes included the probability of seeking care, probability of sample collection and testing, diagnostic test sensitivity and probability of case notification. Parameter distributions were derived from health system data or estimated by expert opinion. Alternative simulations were defined based on changes to key parameter values, separately and in combination., Results: For the default simulation, median surveillance system sensitivity was 0.131 (95% PI 0.111 to 0.152) per month. Median confidence in dengue elimination reached 80% after a minimum of 13 months of zero detected dengue cases and 90% confidence after 25 months, across different scenarios. The alternative simulations investigated produced relatively small changes in median system sensitivity and time to elimination., Conclusion: This study suggests that with a combination of hospital-based surveillance and enhanced clinic-based surveillance for dengue, an acceptable level of confidence (80% probability) in the elimination of locally acquired dengue can be reached within 2 years. Increasing the surveillance system sensitivity could shorten the time to first ascertainment of elimination of dengue and increase the level of confidence in elimination., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)

Introduction: Dengue is a major public health challenge and a growing problem due to climate change. The release of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia is a novel form of vector control against dengue. However, there remains a need to evaluate the benefits of such an intervention at a large scale. In this paper, we evaluate the potential economic impact and cost-effectiveness of scaled Wolbachia deployments as a form of dengue control in Vietnam-targeted at the highest burden urban areas., Methods: Ten settings within Vietnam were identified as priority locations for potential future Wolbachia deployments (using a population replacement strategy). The effectiveness of Wolbachia deployments in reducing the incidence of symptomatic dengue cases was assumed to be 75%. We assumed that the intervention would maintain this effectiveness for at least 20 years (but tested this assumption in the sensitivity analysis). A cost-utility analysis and cost-benefit analysis were conducted., Results: From the health sector perspective, the Wolbachia intervention was projected to cost US$420 per disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted. From the societal perspective, the overall cost-effectiveness ratio was negative, i.e. the economic benefits outweighed the costs. These results are contingent on the long-term effectiveness of Wolbachia releases being sustained for 20 years. However, the intervention was still classed as cost-effective across the majority of the settings when assuming only 10 years of benefits., Conclusion: Overall, we found that targeting high burden cities with Wolbachia deployments would be a cost-effective intervention in Vietnam and generate notable broader benefits besides health gains., Competing Interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: HCT received funding from the World Mosquito Program to conduct this analysis. DLQ, RD, CPS and KLA are employees of the World Mosquito Program. PTH has declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Turner et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Background: Introgression of genetic material from species of the insect bacteria Wolbachia into populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes has been shown in randomised and non-randomised trials to reduce the incidence of dengue; however, evidence for the real-world effectiveness of large-scale deployments of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes for arboviral disease control in endemic settings is still scarce. A large Wolbachia (wMel strain) release programme was implemented in 2017 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We aimed to assess the effect of this programme on the incidence of dengue and chikungunya in the city., Methods: 67 million wMel-infected mosquitoes were released across 28 489 locations over an area of 86·8 km 2 in Rio de Janeiro between Aug 29, 2017 and Dec 27, 2019. Following releases, mosquitoes were trapped and the presence of wMel was recorded. In this spatiotemporal modelling study, we assessed the effect of the release programme on the incidence of dengue and chikungunya. We used spatiotemporally explicit mathematical models applied to geocoded dengue cases (N=283 270) from 2010 to 2019 and chikungunya cases (N=57 705) from 2016 to 2019., Findings: On average, 32% of mosquitoes collected from the release zones between 1 month and 29 months after the initial release tested positive for wMel. Reduced wMel introgression occurred in locations and seasonal periods in which cases of dengue and chikungunya were historically high, with a decrease to 25% of mosquitoes testing positive for wMel during months in which disease incidence was at its highest. Despite incomplete introgression, we found that the releases were associated with a 38% (95% CI 32-44) reduction in the incidence of dengue and a 10% (4-16) reduction in the incidence of chikungunya., Interpretation: Stable establishment of wMel in the geographically diverse, urban setting of Rio de Janeiro seems to be more complicated than has been observed elsewhere. However, even intermediate levels of wMel seem to reduce the incidence of disease caused by two arboviruses. These findings will help to guide future release programmes., Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the European Research Council., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests We declare no competing interests., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Dengue exhibits focal clustering in households and neighborhoods, driven by local mosquito population dynamics, human population immunity, and fine scale human and mosquito movement. We tested the hypothesis that spatiotemporal clustering of homotypic dengue cases is disrupted by introduction of the arbovirus-blocking bacterium Wolbachia (wMel-strain) into the Aedes aegypti mosquito population. We analysed 318 serotyped and geolocated dengue cases (and 5921 test-negative controls) from a randomized controlled trial in Yogyakarta, Indonesia of wMel deployments. We find evidence of spatial clustering up to 300 m among the 265 dengue cases (3083 controls) in the untreated trial arm. Participant pairs enrolled within 30 days and 50 m had a 4.7-fold increase (compared to 95% CI on permutation-based null distribution: 0.1, 1.2) in the odds of being homotypic (i.e. potentially transmission-related) as compared to pairs occurring at any distance. In contrast, we find no evidence of spatiotemporal clustering among the 53 dengue cases (2838 controls) resident in the wMel-treated arm. Introgression of wMel Wolbachia into Aedes aegypti mosquito populations interrupts focal dengue virus transmission leading to reduced case incidence; the true intervention effect may be greater than the 77% efficacy measured in the primary analysis of the Yogyakarta trial., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

The Applying Wolbachia to Eliminate Dengue (AWED) trial was a parallel cluster randomised trial that demonstrated Wolbachia (wMel) introgression into Ae. aegypti populations reduced dengue incidence. In this predefined substudy, we compared between treatment arms, the relative abundance of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus before, during and after wMel-introgression. Between March 2015 and March 2020, 60,084 BG trap collections yielded 478,254 Ae. aegypti and 17,623 Ae. albopictus. Between treatment arms there was no measurable difference in Ae. aegypti relative abundance before or after wMel-deployments, with a count ratio of 0.96 (95% CI 0.76, 1.21) and 1.00 (95% CI 0.85, 1.17) respectively. More Ae. aegypti were caught per trap per week in the wMel-intervention arm compared to the control arm during wMel deployments (count ratio 1.23 (95% CI 1.03, 1.46)). Between treatment arms there was no measurable difference in the Ae. albopictus population size before, during or after wMel-deployment (overall count ratio 1.10 (95% CI 0.89, 1.35)). We also compared insecticide resistance phenotypes of Ae. aegypti in the first and second years after wMel-deployments. Ae. aegypti field populations from wMel-treated and untreated arms were similarly resistant to malathion (0.8%), permethrin (1.25%) and cyfluthrin (0.15%) in year 1 and year 2 of the trial. In summary, we found no between-arm differences in the relative abundance of Ae. aegypti or Ae. albopictus prior to or after wMel introgression, and no between-arm difference in Ae. aegypti insecticide resistance phenotypes. These data suggest neither Aedes abundance, nor insecticide resistance, confounded the epidemiological outcomes of the AWED trial., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Traditional methods of vector control have proven insufficient to reduce the alarming incidence of dengue, Zika, and chikungunya in endemic countries. The bacterium symbiont Wolbachia has emerged as an efficient pathogen-blocking and self-dispersing agent that reduces the vectorial potential of Aedes aegypti populations and potentially impairs arboviral disease transmission. In this work, we report the results of a large-scale Wolbachia intervention in Ilha do Governador, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. w Mel-infected adults were released across residential areas between August 2017 and March 2020. Over 131 weeks, including release and post-release phases, we monitored the w Mel prevalence in field specimens and analyzed introgression profiles of two assigned intervention areas, RJ1 and RJ2. Our results revealed that w Mel successfully invaded both areas, reaching overall infection rates of 50-70% in RJ1 and 30-60% in RJ2 by the end of the monitoring period. At the neighborhood-level, w Mel introgression was heterogeneous in both RJ1 and RJ2, with some profiles sustaining a consistent increase in infection rates and others failing to elicit the same. Correlation analysis revealed a weak overall association between RJ1 and RJ2 ( r = 0.2849, p = 0.0236), and an association at a higher degree when comparing different deployment strategies, vehicle or backpack-assisted, within RJ1 ( r = 0.4676, p < 0.0001) or RJ2 ( r = 0.6263, p < 0.0001). The frequency knockdown resistance ( kdr ) alleles in w Mel-infected specimens from both areas were consistently high over this study. Altogether, these findings corroborate that w Mel can be successfully deployed at large-scale as part of vector control intervention strategies and provide the basis for imminent disease impact studies in Southeastern Brazil., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Gesto, Pinto, Dias, Peixoto, Costa, Kutcher, Montgomery, Green, Anders, Ryan, Simmons, O’Neill and Moreira.)

Background: The introduction of the bacterium Wolbachia (wMel strain) into Aedes aegypti mosquitoes reduces their capacity to transmit dengue and other arboviruses. Evidence of a reduction in dengue case incidence following field releases of wMel-infected Ae. aegypti has been reported previously from a cluster randomised controlled trial in Indonesia, and quasi-experimental studies in Indonesia and northern Australia., Methodology/principal Findings: Following pilot releases in 2015-2016 and a period of intensive community engagement, deployments of adult wMel-infected Ae. aegypti mosquitoes were conducted in Niterói, Brazil during 2017-2019. Deployments were phased across four release zones, with a total area of 83 km2 and a residential population of approximately 373,000. A quasi-experimental design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of wMel deployments in reducing dengue, chikungunya and Zika incidence. An untreated control zone was pre-defined, which was comparable to the intervention area in historical dengue trends. The wMel intervention effect was estimated by controlled interrupted time series analysis of monthly dengue, chikungunya and Zika case notifications to the public health surveillance system before, during and after releases, from release zones and the control zone. Three years after commencement of releases, wMel introgression into local Ae. aegypti populations was heterogeneous throughout Niterói, reaching a high prevalence (>80%) in the earliest release zone, and more moderate levels (prevalence 40-70%) elsewhere. Despite this spatial heterogeneity in entomological outcomes, the wMel intervention was associated with a 69% reduction in dengue incidence (95% confidence interval 54%, 79%), a 56% reduction in chikungunya incidence (95%CI 16%, 77%) and a 37% reduction in Zika incidence (95%CI 1%, 60%), in the aggregate release area compared with the pre-defined control area. This significant intervention effect on dengue was replicated across all four release zones, and in three of four zones for chikungunya, though not in individual release zones for Zika., Conclusions/significance: We demonstrate that wMel Wolbachia can be successfully introgressed into Ae. aegypti populations in a large and complex urban setting, and that a significant public health benefit from reduced incidence of Aedes-borne disease accrues even where the prevalence of wMel in local mosquito populations is moderate and spatially heterogeneous. These findings are consistent with the results of randomised and non-randomised field trials in Indonesia and northern Australia, and are supportive of the Wolbachia biocontrol method as a multivalent intervention against dengue, chikungunya and Zika., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exist.

Background: Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with the w Mel strain of Wolbachia pipientis are less susceptible than wild-type A. aegypti to dengue virus infection., Methods: We conducted a cluster-randomized trial involving releases of w Mel-infected A. aegypti mosquitoes for the control of dengue in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. We randomly assigned 12 geographic clusters to receive deployments of w Mel-infected A. aegypti (intervention clusters) and 12 clusters to receive no deployments (control clusters). All clusters practiced local mosquito-control measures as usual. A test-negative design was used to assess the efficacy of the intervention. Patients with acute undifferentiated fever who presented to local primary care clinics and were 3 to 45 years of age were recruited. Laboratory testing was used to identify participants who had virologically confirmed dengue (VCD) and those who were test-negative controls. The primary end point was symptomatic VCD of any severity caused by any dengue virus serotype., Results: After successful introgression of w Mel into the intervention clusters, 8144 participants were enrolled; 3721 lived in intervention clusters, and 4423 lived in control clusters. In the intention-to-treat analysis, VCD occurred in 67 of 2905 participants (2.3%) in the intervention clusters and in 318 of 3401 (9.4%) in the control clusters (aggregate odds ratio for VCD, 0.23; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.15 to 0.35; P = 0.004). The protective efficacy of the intervention was 77.1% (95% CI, 65.3 to 84.9) and was similar against the four dengue virus serotypes. The incidence of hospitalization for VCD was lower among participants who lived in intervention clusters (13 of 2905 participants [0.4%]) than among those who lived in control clusters (102 of 3401 [3.0%]) (protective efficacy, 86.2%; 95% CI, 66.2 to 94.3)., Conclusions: Introgression of w Mel into A. aegypti populations was effective in reducing the incidence of symptomatic dengue and resulted in fewer hospitalizations for dengue among the participants. (Funded by the Tahija Foundation and others; AWED ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT03055585; Indonesia Registry number, INA-A7OB6TW.)., (Copyright © 2021 Massachusetts Medical Society.)