Release the mosquitos! How 5 billion bugs will help fight dengue fever in Brazil

A mosquito factory will open in 2024 and produce 100 million bugs each week

Philip Drost · CBC Radio · Posted: Apr 19, 2023 3:53 PM CDT | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

It may sound like the premise for a horror movie, or a biblical plague, but the World Mosquito Program plans to release five billion mosquitos into Brazil. And the hope is they will help save lives.

The billions of bugs will be released with a bacteria called Wolbachia, all in an effort to slow the transmission of dengue fever in the country.

"[Once] you see the reductions in disease transmission, it doesn't seem like a horror movie any more," Scott O'Neill, director of the World Mosquito Program, told The Current host Matt Galloway.

A mosquito factory is being built for the project. It will open in 2024 and produce five billion mosquitoes each year to be released across Brazil, according to the scientific journal Nature.

More:
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/mosquitos-dengue-fever-brazil-1.6815601