Diseases transmitted by mosquitoes cause over one million deaths and infect up to 700 million people every year, nearly one in ten people globally. The year 2024 was the worst on record for dengue, with over 14 million cases and nearly 12,000 deaths linked to the disease.
These figures were released today by the World Mosquito Program for World Mosquito Day, to draw attention to the risks of mosquito-borne illnesses and the ongoing efforts to combat them. So far in 2025 alone, 3.6 million dengue cases and over 1,900 deaths have been reported across 94 countries and territories. A particularly significant surge has been seen in the Pacific, where Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, and the Cook Islands have declared outbreaks.
“Dengue fever is the most widespread mosquito-borne disease in the world,” explained Greg Devine, Senior Field Entomology Director for the World Mosquito Program. “Cases are on the rise in the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia, and the global trend continues to grow unabated. These increases are driven by climate change, globalization, and exposure to new dengue serotypes, combined with the limited impact of current control measures.”
In recent months, the World Health Organization (WHO) has also issued an alert to prevent a new epidemic of chikungunya, a disease that spread globally two decades ago. Some 5.6 billion people across 119 countries live in areas at risk. In China, the city of Foshan has reported over 8,000 cases, while Hong Kong has recorded its first imported cases. According to data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), approximately 240,000 chikungunya cases and 90 deaths have been counted across 16 countries since January 2025.
Among the most sustainable solutions, the World Mosquito Program (WMP) advocates for the Wolbachia method, describing it as “a safe, non-GMO intervention that reduces mosquitoes’ ability to transmit viruses like dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. The approach is based on releasing mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia, which breed with the local population until they replace it over time.”
Over the last decade, the method has been deployed in 14 countries, protecting nearly 13.5 million people. Results show significant reductions in cases: a three-year randomized study in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, recorded a 77% drop in dengue cases and an 86% reduction in hospitalizations. In Colombia and Brazil, cities like the Aburrá Valley and Niterói have seen the incidence of the disease collapse, protecting millions of citizens.
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