Hundreds of Wolbachia mosquitoes feed on blood at the World Mosquito Program facility in Medellín, Colombia. ![]() Other World Mosquito Program sites around the world are also breeding Wolbachia mosquitoes, but Colombia’s is currently the largest. That brings us back to the factory in Medellín, which is currently the world’s largest mosquito breeding facility in the world, producing more than 30 million mosquitoes per week. The demand for these lifesaving mosquitoes continues to grow and that means the World Mosquito Program needs to produce hundreds of millions of Wolbachia mosquitoes. The biggest risk is posed by dengue, which infects more than 400 million people each year and kills 20,000. As global temperatures rise, Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, are finding more regions of the world habitable, increasing the spread of these diseases. (Malaria is spread through a parasite carried by the Anopheles mosquito and is not a focus of the Wolbachia effort.) With climate change, there is an urgency to the World Mosquito Program’s work. The World Mosquito Program aims to spread Wolbachia among Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, a tropical mosquito that is a host for dengue, yellow fever, and other viruses. Over time, families will be spared the heartbreak of losing loved ones and communities won’t need to spend money on prevention and treatment for these mosquito-borne diseases, freeing up funds for other health priorities. The World Mosquito Program, which is leading the Wolbachia effort, is now releasing these mosquitoes in 11 countries: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu.Īnd what’s remarkable about the Wolbachia mosquitoes is that once enough of them are released to offer disease protection, it’s a solution that’s self-sustaining. These results are a huge breakthrough, offering proof that this new technology will protect entire cities and countries against the threat of mosquito-borne diseases. In a new study in Medellín, dengue cases have declined by 89 percent since Wolbachia mosquitoes started being released in 2015. The randomized controlled trial conducted in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, found that Wolbachia-carrying mosquitoes reduced the number of dengue cases in the city by 77 percent and dengue hospitalizations by 86 percent. I’ve written before about these amazing Wolbachia mosquitoes, including last year when a new study showed how effective they could be in preventing diseases. ![]() By releasing them to reproduce with wild mosquitoes, they spread the bacteria, reducing virus transmission and protecting millions of people from illnesses. Here’s how they do it: The mosquitoes being produced in this factory carry bacteria called Wolbachia that block them from transmitting dengue and other viruses, such as Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever, to humans.
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