On 19 August 2020, UK based biotechnology company, Oxitec, announced a landmark agreement on its website that will see Oxitec release some 750 million genetically modified male mosquitoes in the Florida Keys, US, across 2021 and 2022. The reason for the release of the mosquitos is to counter the spread of the female
Aedes aegypti mosquito, an invasive species that spreads dengue fever, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever. The male of the species is relatively harmless, as it does not bite humans or other animals, living on fruit instead, while the female lives on a diet of fruit and human blood.
What Oxitec have done is create genetically modified male mosquitoes with a “self-limiting gene” that prevents possible female offspring from surviving once the genetically modified males mate with the wild females. Should the offspring be male, it will survive, but also carry a copy of the self-limiting gene, so that when it breeds, its female offspring will not survive. The goal is to