Debug is a program funded by Google that aims to develop new technologies to combat mosquitoes worldwide. This program involves breeding and releasing sterile male mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia on a large scale in order to reduce populations of wild mosquitoes Aedes aegypti, the main carrier of dengue fever, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever. The program uses a natural bacterium called Wolbachia to functionally sterilize Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, while developing cutting-edge software and hardware to grow and hatch millions of mosquitoes and then classify them by sex.
In 2018, a pilot three-year field trial program was successfully completed in Fresno, California, in partnership with the Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District. Since then, this program has been in full operational development in Singapore, where the largest production plant of sterile male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia operates, to release 7 million sterile insects in the Singapore city weekly (the release is done by the National Environment Agency of Singapore-NEA).
Spiros Mourelatos, at the invitation of Google, visited and was given a tour of the production facility of the Debug program in Singapore by Debug’s Business Development Director, Ms. Monica Tsai, in order to explore the possibility of applying similar technologies in Greece.
We would to thank Mrs Tsai for providing us the four following photos.
