Inside a biological sciences lab at the University of Manitoba, Prof. Steve Whyard reaches his hand into a screened cage. He is tending to a lab-bred colony of yellow fever mosquitoes.
“All those little black dots are the eggs,” Whyard said. “There’s probably a few hundred of them there.”
Like many other scientists around the world, Whyard’s team is studying ways to control the mosquito population to help reduce the spread of disease, without the use of pesticides.
Summer temperatures mean it will soon be peak mosquito season across Canada. With millions of international visitors and fans gathering for the FIFA World Cup, public health agencies in the U.S. and Mexico are expanding mosquito surveillance in host cities to prevent outbreaks of mosquito-borne illnesses. Canada, meanwhile, is not fundamentally altering its core approach, instead relying on pre-existing seasonal tracking.
In Whyard’s lab, he’s feeding his mosquitoes a specialized diet of pellets containing what he describes as “RNA cocktails,” aiming to effectively neuter the buzzing blood-suckers.
“We can turn down the genes involved in sperm production in the males to make them sterile, and we can turn down genes that are involved in female development so that we prevent the female larvae from becoming adults,” he said.
They are the deadliest animal on the planet, responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths globally every year. Now the war against mosquitoes is going down to the genetic level.
Sterilized male mosquitoes could then be released to compete with wild males for females, with the goal of preventing larvae from being laid without causing harm to other insects.
Because only female mosquitoes bite, halting their development or rendering males sterile could effectively collapse targeted local populations. But they would have to be released in great numbers, and in waves throughout the season, to control the population.
An evolving threat
Infection rates for deadly mosquito-borne diseases are extremely low in Canada.
Currently, West Nile virus is the most common. In 2025, Health Canada reported 295 locally-acquired human cases and nine deaths. Cases of yellow fever, dengue fever, Zika and chikungunya fever are exclusively travel-acquired. A 2025 report noted there are hundreds of dengue and chikungunya cases and a handful of Zika cases in Canada each year.
But experts warn climate change and evolving environmental factors — including deforestation — are rapidly expanding the geographical range of the world’s deadliest animal, and the way it lives and breeds.
The Asian tiger mosquito — a species capable of carrying yellow fever, dengue fever, Zika, West Nile and chikungunya fever — has already been detected in southern Ontario.
“Typically thought of as a major problem of the tropical region, I think it’s not really safe to say that anymore,” said Hilary Ranson, a professor of medical entomology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in England.
Her work focuses on controlling mosquito populations to reduce the spread of malaria.
Globally, the statistics are staggering. Ranson notes that mosquitoes are responsible for roughly 800,000 deaths each year and account for 17 per cent of all infectious diseases.
Yet, the danger is highly concentrated. Of the roughly 3,500 mosquito species on Earth, just five per cent are responsible for 95 per cent of human infections.
“Think [of] how annoying it is to be bitten,” Ranson said. Now, think about what it would be like if “the next bite for your child could kill them.”
“Whilst I wouldn’t normally be an advocate for elimination of any species, I think there perhaps is a case here.”
Lasers, genes and ethics
The race to neutralize the threat has led to diverse innovations around the world.
Chinese startup Photon Matrix has developed a portable device that uses a LiDAR (light detection and ranging) sensor and lasers to scan the air up to six metres away and identify the insect’s size, speed and direction.
It operates as a miniature Iron Dome — a reference to an Israeli mobile all-weather air defence system designed to intercept and destroy short-range rockets and artillery shells — capable of zapping up to 30 mosquitoes per second without using chemicals.
If a human, pet or bird enters the beam or gets in range, the laser is programmed to shut off instantly. The device is still undergoing required third-party safety and regulatory certifications.
But the bulk of the scientific community is focused on genetic modification — either sterilizing insects or altering them so they can no longer transmit human diseases.
The Gates Foundation, in particular, has spent billions trying to eradicate mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue, funding advanced dual-insecticide nets, supporting malaria vaccines and backing biological interventions that use mosquitoes that don’t carry diseases to suppress those that do.
Meanwhile, Google’s parent company Alphabet wants federal approval to release up to 32 million sterile mosquitoes in California and Florida. It’s part of the tech giant’s Debug program, which aims to stop disease-bearing mosquitoes from reproducing.
But groundbreaking science and genetic modifications come with complications.
When it comes to genetically modified mosquitoes, “it’s very hard to take it back once you’ve released it,” Ranson warned.
“It is a bit of a political, regulatory, ethical minefield, to be honest.”
And, she said, with trust in science low, there has to be a lot of public education.
“It’s so critical that all this clever science is done alongside really important community engagement, understanding people’s concerns and addressing those at an early stage.”
On the Canadian front lines
The Public Health Agency of Canada is also leaning on everyday citizens.
The agency is currently running its Tiger Mosquito Citizen Science study again this year to monitor the spread of the invasive species in real time.
The initiative kicked off in classrooms in 2024 across the Windsor-Essex region in southern Ontario, where local students have been equipped with specialized kits. Simple traps allow them to safely collect mosquito eggs from their own schoolyards and backyards to send to researchers.
The study has since expanded to the Greater Toronto Area, and the agency plans to establish test distribution and collection sites across Canada.
WATCH | New approaches to mosquito management:
For all the high-tech breakthroughs, much of the science around mosquitoes remains theoretical in northern climates because there’s been little need or economic incentive to deploy it.
“Our main nuisance mosquito doesn’t carry any disease to humans so there’s no urgency to control it,” said David Wade, superintendent of insect control for the City of Winnipeg, which operates the largest municipal mosquito control program in Canada.
