Dengue fever surged by 400% across Brazil after gene-edited mosquitos were released as part of a project backed by Bill Gates.
The virus is also spreading across Peru, Argentina, and Laos.
In the first five weeks of 2024, there have been 364,855 reported infections and 40 confirmed deaths, according to The Guardian. More than 200 other cases are under investigation.
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) director-general, Tedros Adhanom, claimed the outbreak is connected to increased rainfall in Brazil, billions of gene-edited mosquitos were scheduled to be released in the country over a 10-year period as part of the World Mosquito Program, which is a partner of the Gates Foundation.
“The World Mosquito Program, with support from generous partners like the Gates Foundation, are doing just that with our Wolbachia method which is scalable, sustainable, non-GMO and safe for people and the planet,” reads a statement from the World Mosquito Program.
Harvard Public Health published an article last August describing the efforts taken by Brazilian authorities in “releasing clouds of lab-grown Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria, which prevents dengue virus transmission to humans.”
“The country will be the first to launch a nationwide program to release Wolbachia-modified mosquitoes, which are expected to protect up to 70 million people from dengue fever over the next 10 years,” the report stated. “And it’s building a factory to scale up mosquito production: Beginning 2024, the factory will mass-produce five billion mosquitoes a year.”
American Faith previously reported that dengue fever surged in Bangladesh after the country began releasing irradiated mosquitoes into the population, a move also in partnership with the Gates Foundation.
Starting from Jan 2022, Bangladesh and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)—which is funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—commenced a “four-year technical cooperation program to advance sterile mosquito technology as part of an area-wide integrated pest management program to control Aedes mosquitoes,” according to a local news source.
The Gates Foundation has also committed $55 million to develop vaccines for dengue.
