Canberra The world’s first factory for breeding mosquitoes on an industrial scale is to be built in Australia. The aim is to fight against mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, yellow fever, Zika or Chikungunya. The aid organization World Mosquito Program has teamed up with the French start-up InnovaFeed for the project. Up until now, it specialized in the production of insect protein for animal feed. Around ten years ago, the World Mosquito Program developed a method by which female mosquitoes are infected with the Wolbachia bacterium. This reduces the likelihood that other viruses such as dengue fever can multiply in the mosquito’s body. This also reduces the likelihood of transmission to humans.
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