Monash University’s World Mosquito Program

Protecting the global community from mosquito-borne diseases

The Macquarie 50th Anniversary Award winners, each awarded $A10 million over five years, were selected for their bold ideas to address areas of significant social need that would result in lasting community benefit.

The World Mosquito Program’s vision is for a world where everyone can live a healthy life – free from the fear and suffering caused by mosquito-borne diseases like dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever.

4 new countries

involved in WMP projects¹

Helped protect 13.5 million people

from dengue¹

New technologies

developed for scaling Wolbachia releases¹

Over the past five years, the World Mosquito Program (WMP) has refined on the development, testing and monitoring of the groundbreaking Wolbachia method, a safe and effective approach to reducing the transmission of certain mosquito-borne diseases.

WMP has trialled new technologies for Wolbachia mosquito production and releases, including:

unmanned aerial vehicle releases
automated ground-based release mechanisms
mobile production facilities

With the support of Macquarie Group, WMP has initiated projects in four new countries: Laos, El Salvador, Timor-Leste, and Honduras and expanded Wolbachia releases in Cali, Colombia.

Our grant also supported WMP in developing a knowledge-sharing platform to help train country partners and local teams on Wolbachia mosquito rearing and release methodology.

The Macquarie 50^th Anniversary Award has also supported ongoing monitoring of the effectiveness of Wolbachia releases across multiple sites, from Australia to New Caledonia to Vietnam.

Since winning the Macquarie 50th Anniversary Award in 2019, WMP has raised an additional $A30.4 million in funding to further scale-up Wolbachia mosquito releases.¹

Over the past five years we’ve been focused on scaling our operations so we can protect more people. We were able to leverage the initial funding from Macquarie Group Foundation to help advance projects in new locations.”

Scott O'Neill
Chief Executive Officer
World Mosquito Program

The future for the World Mosquito Program

Expansion of pilot projects: WMP is planning to expand on successful pilot projects in Laos, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. The following countries have also been identified as key ongoing or new priorities: Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Thailand.
Joint venture in Brazil: In Brazil, WMP has entered into a joint venture, Wolbito do Brasil S.A., to build and operate an industrial-scale mosquito production facility to help drive large-scale field implementation of Wolbachia across high-risk cities throughout the country. Production from this facility, along with existing facilities, will scale Wolbachia mosquito releases to meet WMP’s ambitious target of protecting more than 130 million people in high-risk urban areas over the next ten years.
Innovation and scaling: To achieve its expansion ambitions of protecting 60 million people over the next five years, WMP recognises that product innovation is required to increase population coverage while significantly reducing the resources and costs required to deploy over large areas. WMP plans to continue its development of automated ground and aerial release platforms and dedicated equipment to chill, handle, and package adult mosquitoes for release.

Monash University’s World Mosquito Program takes a bold approach to protect global communities from mosquito-borne diseases. In this video, we hear from Ms Bani, who has championed the program’s life-changing work in her own community in Kricak Village, Indonesia.

Project updates

In FY2024, positive results from the World Mosquito Program's (WMP) pilot mosquito community releases in Vientiane, Laos, prompted new private and public sector investment to enable roll-out for the remaining areas of the city, along with urban areas in four additional provinces. The first mosquito releases in El Salvador commenced, and Wolbachia prevalence in Cali, Colombia exceeded 50 per cent in the majority of release areas. Many of the Wolbachia intervention communities have reported low dengue case numbers despite high incidence rates in surrounding cities.

In FY2023, the WMP commenced operations in Laos, Honduras and El Salvador, and undertook preliminary discussions with the Timor-Leste Government around establishing a WMP presence there. WMP also scaled up mosquito releases in Cali, Colombia, supported by active community participation.

In FY2022, Monash University’s WMP announced that its technology had now reached more than 10 million people, and in so doing, it is predicted to have already averted more than 300,000 dengue cases and more than 20,000 hospitalisations in the areas where the technology has been deployed.¹

In FY2021, the WMP conducted a study to measure the efficacy of the Wolbachia method through a randomised controlled trial in Yogyakarta City, Indonesia. The study showed a 77 per cent reduction in dengue incidence and an 86 per cent reduction in dengue hospitalisations in Wolbachia-treated areas compared with untreated areas.¹

Data and impact reporting is supplied by World Mosquito Program as at March 2025. The data is not independently verified and represents activities undertaken by World Mosquito Program with support from Macquarie Group Foundation for the full length of the grant period (August 2019 – March 2025).

Monash University's World Mosquito Program