{"id":282684,"date":"2026-02-13T19:43:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/282684\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T19:43:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:43:20","slug":"time100-health-luciano-moreira-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/282684\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME100 Health: Luciano Moreira | TIME"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rich-text mb-6 self-baseline font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\" data-testid=\"paragraph-content\">In July 2025, Wolbito do Brasil, a joint venture of the World Mosquito Program and partners headed by CEO Luciano Moreira, opened the world\u2019s largest mosquito biofactory in Curitiba, Brazil, to help stop the insects from spreading illnesses like <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/6998072\/dengue-mosquitoes-how-to-protect-yourself\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">dengue<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/4318624\/zika-virus-and-birth-defects-what-you-need-to-know\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Zika<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rich-text mb-6 self-baseline font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\" data-testid=\"paragraph-content\">Wolbito-bred Aedes aegypti <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/6989548\/mosquitoes-attracted-to-scents-colors-research\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mosquitoes<\/a> are exposed to the naturally occurring bacterium Wolbachia, which inhibits the host\u2019s ability to spread disease. The bacterium is maternally transmitted to offspring, and when released into the environment, the Wolbachia-treated mosquitoes breed generations of mosquitos unable to spread disease. The method has so far protected more than 5 million people in 16 cities across Brazil, says Moreira. With the new factory, those numbers will go up radically. \u201cThe biggest facility is up and running, with the capacity to produce 100 million eggs per week,\u201d says Moreira. \u201cThis protects 14 million people every year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In July 2025, Wolbito do Brasil, a joint venture of the World Mosquito Program and partners headed by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[54805,13687,134,527,10005,4974,111,139,69,54807,16498,156689],"class_list":{"0":"post-282684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-accolades","9":"tag-franchise","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare","12":"tag-list","13":"tag-magazine","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-special-project","18":"tag-sponsorshipblock","19":"tag-time100-health-2026"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}