Video what the super-made of mosquitoes looks like, the weapon used to protect from “broken bone fever” 140 million people

The world's largest biofaber for growing mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria, a method used by researchers to combat Denga fever, hopes to protect about 140 million people from Brazil from this disease in the coming years, the company said.

The Wolbito Do Brasil factory, supported and used exclusively by the Ministry of Health of Brazil, opened in the city of Curitiba on July 19. Being an association between World Mosquito Program, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and the Institute of Molecular Biology in Parana, it can produce 100 million mosquito eggs per week.

“Wolbito Do Brasil will be able to protect about 7 million people from Brazil every six months,” said Luciano Moreira, the company's executive director, in an interview.

Dengue fever, known in popular language as “broken bone fever” because of the weakness it can cause, is widespread by Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes, which infect hundreds of millions of people every year, according to the World Health Organization (OMS).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygj9hlbl48y

Severe cases of dengue fever can be fatal, and about 6,300 people have died due to this disease in Brazil last year, the worst year, according to WHO data.

Wolbachia bacteria prevent mosquitoes from transmitting dengue fever and other diseases, such as Zika or Chikungunya. Therefore, public health authorities are issuing mosquitoes raised in the laboratory, infected with Wolbachia, to reproduce with local mosquito populations and to transmit bacteria that block infection with the virus.

The method has already protected over 5 million people from eight Brazilian cities in 2014, according to the Ministry of Health in Brazil.

“Wolbachia lives only inside the insect cells. So, if an insect dies, she dies,” said Antonio Brandao, the production director of Wolbito Do Brasil, saying that this method is safe.

“Wolbachia is present in over 60% of nature insects and … I have never had interactions with people.”

As Wolbito Do Brasil intensifies their activity, cars loaded with infected mosquitoes will go through areas with high incidence of dengue fever and release insects by pressing a button.

“The area chosen within the municipality is based on the cases of dengue, so that the neighborhoods with the highest incidence of people infected with the disease are priority neighborhoods,” said Tamila Kleine, the coordinator of Wolbito Do Brasil regional operations.

The authorities in Hawaii also resorted to the release of mosquitoes modified in the laboratory, carriers of a bacteria called Wolbachia, in an attempt to save the native birds of the islands, on the verge of disappearance due to aviary malaria.