Google’s Debug programme wants to ‘stop bad bugs with good bugs’. But it’s not talking about software updates – instead, it’s talking about mosquitoes.
Debug is on a mission to eliminate disease-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes by releasing sterile males. Now after trials in Singapore and Australia, it’s applied to the US Environmental Protection Agency to release up to 64 million of the insects in Florida and California over a two-year period.
Bad vs good bugs
In 2024, Google fully acquired the Debug Project from tech organisation Verily, which began as a ‘moonshot’ project at Google X. Other moonshot projects (which aim to solve extremely challenging problems using ambitious solutions) at the company include its self-driving car Waymo, and the drone delivery service Wing.
Debug had been in business for a decade by then. Its aim is to target invasive yellow fever mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti. As well as yellow fever, the species can transmit more than 50 other viral diseases such as Zika, dengue and chikungunya, and is considered one of the world’s most dangerous insects.
Native to Africa, it’s thought that climate change has helped it spread to more temperate areas around the world – leaving around four billion people at risk of disease.
Debug’s solution to this growing threat is to release male mosquitoes that contain a naturally-occurring bacteria found in many insects called Wolbachia. This prevents them from having offspring with wild female mosquitoes as the eggs of the female won’t hatch. It’s hoped that over time, the mosquito population will fall.
This is a method called sterile insect technique (SIT), and it isn’t new. SIT was first used for population control of the New World screwworm in the 1950s. Since then, it’s often been used as part of an integrated pest management approach.
Other companies, such as Wolbito do Brasil, in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, are also using the same technique to tackle mosquito populations and report promising results.
US permit
A notice published in the federal register on 6th May 2026 showed that the US Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing Google’s request for an experimental use permit (EUP) for the use of Wolbachia pipientis in male mosquitoes for two years in California and Florida.
According to the notice, up to 16 million of the mosquitoes are proposed to be released in year one in Florida, and up to 16 million released in year two. The same is proposed for California.
Due to the proposal’s significance, the EPA invited comments on the application. The window for comments closed on 5th June 2026, and any issuance of an EUP will be announced in the Federal Register.
Previous global trials
The latest application for an EUP in the US comes after previous large-scale trials in the US, Singapore and Australia, in collaboration with universities and governments.
A 2018 large-scale trial occurred in Fresno County, California, with 14.4 million Wolbachia-carrying male mosquitoes being released over several years. In a post published on Debug’s blog, the company said that it had achieved up to 84% suppression of biting female mosquitoes.
And around three million Wolbachia-carrying male mosquitoes were released into three towns in northern Australia’s Cassowary Coast in 2018.
The findings, published in Applied Biological Science, were promising – with strong suppression reported across populations of Wolbachia-carrying Aedes aegypti. However, the trials weren’t carried out over a long time period. The paper notes that further analysis is needed to get a clearer idea of what eradication looks like.
Large-scale trials have also been occurring in Singapore since 2018, with a Debug research facility also being opened in 2022.
Debug state that over 10 million Wolbachia-carrying male mosquitoes are released weekly in Singapore and that the country has achieved “80-90% suppression of the Aedes aegypti mosquito population and more than 70% reduction in dengue incidents after 6 to 12 months of releases”.
Debug and the US Environmental Protection Agency were both approached for comment but BBC Wildlife are yet to hear back.
