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Brazil Deploys Millions of Lab-bred Mosquitoes To Combat Dengue Epidemic
Friday August 1, 2025. 12:00 AM , from Slashdot
![]() The approach has already demonstrated significant results in Niteroi, where officials documented a roughly 90% drop in dengue cases when comparing the 10 years prior to the modified mosquitoes' introduction to the five years afterward. Nearly all mosquitoes in the city now carry the Wolbachia bacteria. Cases of chikungunya and Zika also fell by over 96% and 99% respectively. The World Mosquito Program operates high-tech breeding facilities, including one in Rio de Janeiro that produces mosquitoes by the millions. A new factory in Curitiba will produce 5 billion mosquitoes in its first year. The Wolbachia bacteria, naturally present in roughly half of all insect species, creates conditions where dengue virus cannot replicate inside mosquitoes, effectively breaking the transmission cycle when these modified insects bite humans. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/07/31/2040215/brazil-deploys-millions-of-lab-bred-mosquitoes-t...
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