Google submitted an application to the United States Environmental Protection Agency to release 32 million mosquitoes in Florida and California, an initiative that may sound terrifying but is actually an innovative scientific strategy to combat mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, zika, chikungunya, and malaria, using the “sterile insect technique”.
The mosquitoes the tech giant plans to release are males of the Aedes aegypti species infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, which do not bite or transmit diseases, and which, when they mate with wild females, prevent their eggs from hatching, thus naturally reducing populations of dangerous mosquitoes without the need to use chemical insecticides.
Project Debug has already been tested in Singapore with successful results, achieving a reduction of between 80% and 90% in the Aedes aegypti mosquito population and a decrease of more than 70% in dengue cases in some areas, and now Google is awaiting authorization from the EPA while Bill Gates is also investing in similar projects, such as a factory in Colombia that produces 30 million mosquitoes a week with the same goal.
