Combined sterile insect technique and incompatible insect technique: sex separation and quality of sterile Aedes aegypti male mosquitoes released in a pilot population suppression trial in Thailand.

Background: The sterile insect technique (SIT), which is based on irradiation-induced sterility, and incompatible insect technique (IIT), which is based on Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility (a kind of male sterility), have been used as alternative methods to reduce mosquito vector populations. Both methods require the release of males to reduce fertile females and suppress the number of natural populations. Different techniques of sex separation to obtain only males have been investigated previously.