Havana, April 20 (RHC)-- The Cuban Agency for Nuclear Energy and Advanced Technologies has joined a regional program to fight Aedes mosquitoes.

Launched by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the program aims to boost capacities in Latin America and the Caribbean to control the spread of Zika, dengue, chikungunya and other mosquito-born viruses.

The program has been approved by the World Health Organization for a two-year period with the participation of Cuban institutions, among them the Center for Environmental Engineering and Technological Applications, Havana's Pedro Kouri Tropical Medicine Institute, and the Center for Nuclear Development.

The UN agency is promoting the use of what is known as the Sterile Insect Technique, which sterilizes male mosquitoes through ionizing radiations, in order to reduce the mosquito population.