“Genetically edited mosquitoes”. Is the program financed by Bill Gates responsible for the dengue outbreak in Brazil?

“The spread of dengue in Brazil Is it related to the release of Bill Gates’ ‘genetically edited mosquitoes’? Frank Bergman: An outbreak of a deadly virus is spreading in Brazil after millions of ‘genetically edited mosquitoes’ were released into the wild”, highlights in a tweet of March 3, among many other examples of recent publications on social media that hold Bill Gates responsible for the dengue outbreak in that South American country which, by March 16, had already caused more than 1.3 million infections and 350 deaths .

At the tweet in question, we point to a quote attributed to Frank Bergman who, in an article written in Spanish and published in site “Tierra Pura” (considered a source of disinformation since it emerged in late 2020), suggests a “relationship between propagation of dengue fever in Brazil and the release of genetically modified mosquitoes by Bill Gates”.

In that text, Bergman alleged that “Bill Gates’ money is involved in every aspect of the situation, from the genetically modified mosquitoes that possibly exacerbated the dengue crisis to the financing of companies that supply the much sought after dengue vaccine to Brazil”.

Does this story have any basis?

It’s nothing more than a conspiracy theory that emerged on X/Twitter and has since spread to several other social networks. In fact, it had been disseminated previously, with different versions (and diseases). In August 2023, for example, a tweet pointed to the alleged link between “a company financed by Bill Gates” and a malaria outbreak, another theory that has been shown to be false.

The new version adapted to dengue began to circulate following a new outbreak of this disease in Brazil which, since the beginning of 2024, has already caused more than 1.7 million potential cases of infection and 513 confirmed deaths until March 18, according to data collected by the Brazilian Ministry of Health.

As for the article, the United Nations World Mosquito Program is at stake – an initiative financed by Bill Gates that began operating in Brazil in 2015 and combats diseases transmitted by mosquitoes at a global level – and Wolbachia technology.

Contrary to what is claimed, the Wolbachia method is the one used in Brazil and not the genetic modification of mosquitoes. In other words, the method in question consists of inserting the Wolbachia bacteria into specimens of the Aedes aegypti for them to mate and create a new population of mosquitoes. These new mosquitoes already have the Wolbachia bacteria in them, which impedes development of dengue, zika, chikungunya and urban yellow fever viruses in mosquitoes.

“There is no modification genetics in the Wolbachia method, neither in the mosquito nor in Wolbachia”, is guaranteed on the official pages of the United Nations Global Mosquito Program and the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), which runs the program in Brazil.

Furthermore, this method not capable of infecting humans and has already proven to be effective in reducing dengue cases by 70% in the city of Niterói, in Rio de Janeiro.

The article confuses this technique with genetically modified mosquitoes whose purpose is to combat diseases transmitted by Aedes aegypti. In the latter case, mosquito specimens are produced in the laboratory to carry a self-limiting gene, responsible for prevent females from surviving until adulthood, and a marker gene, which facilitates identification.

In adulthood, these specimens mate with females from the Aedes aegypti, generating other females that, because they have this gene, do not survive to adulthood. This way, reduces the spread of diseasesbecause only females of the Aedes aegypti they bite and, consequently, transmit viruses.

Joshua Van Raalte, spokesman for the British biotechnology company Oxitec responsible for the genetic modification of mosquitoes, clarified in statements to AFP that “the Oxitec mosquitoes that were released in Brazil are only males, meaning they are unable to bite humans. So the spread of any disease is scientifically impossible“.

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