In an effort to combat the spread of Dengue fever, Brazil recently inaugurated the world’s largest mosquito factory, capable of producing up to 190 million winged bloodsuckers per week.

Located in Campinas, Brazil’s Sao Paolo state, the world’s largest mosquito factory is a 1,300-square-meter facility where staff work tirelessly to ensure that almost 200 million mosquitoes reach maturity before being released to reproduce. It sounds like the stuff of nightmares, but in reality, it is part of a well-documented process of preventing the spread of Dengue fever. During their stage, the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes bred inside the massive factory are infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, which