In an effort to combat the spread of Dengue fever, Brazil recently inaugurated the world’s largest mosquito factory, capable of producing up to 190 million winged bloodsuckers per week.
Located in Campinas, Brazil’s Sao Paolo state, the world’s largest mosquito factory is a 1,300-square-meter facility where staff work tirelessly to ensure that almost 200 million mosquitoes reach maturity before being released to reproduce. It sounds like the stuff of nightmares, but in reality, it is part of a well-documented process of preventing the spread of Dengue fever. During their stage, the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes bred inside the massive factory are infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, which prevents the Dengue virus from developing in their bodies and, therefore, from being transmitted to humans. Furthermore, when they reproduce, the bacteria is transmitted to their offspring.
Mosquito production inside the Campinas factory begins with thousands of trays filled with water at a regulated temperature, where the larvae develop. When they become mosquitoes, they are transferred in cages where they are fed their favorite food: for males, a sugary solution poured onto cotton balls, and for females, animal blood served in bags that mimic the texture of human skin. The mosquitoes spend four weeks in their cages, during which time they reproduce and lay eggs in trays placed at the bottom of the cage.
The Wolbachia method has already been used successfully in other parts of the world, but Brazil hopes to use it on a scale that has never been reached before. It needs to, because Dengue fever infections have been getting worse every year. The South American country experienced its worst dengue outbreak in history in 2024, accounting for more than 80% of all reported infections worldwide.
The world’s largest mosquito factory is capable of producing up to 190 million mosquitoes per week, enough to serve a population of 100 million people for a year.
