A mosquito sits on a person's arm. With global warming, 80% of the world’s population now runs the risk of being exposed to one or more infectious diseases long considered tropical, which cause more than a million deaths a year.
Inside a factory in southern France, millions of tiger mosquitoes are being bred, not to have them spread, but to stop them from reproducing - though scaling up such efforts poses a mighty challenge.
At the Terratis facility in Montpellier, male insects grow inside large glass enclosures. In batches of 400 000, they are exposed to X-rays, making them infertile.
"After sterilisation, we release them into urban areas," explained Clelia Oliva, co‑founder of Terratis. "They look for females and mate, but when the females lay eggs, those eggs are empty."
The aim is to flood an area with sterile male mosquitoes until the invasive population gradually collapses.
