Staff and contributors  at the Central Epidemic Hygiene Institute have voluntarily acted as victims of the mosquitoes’ blood sucking frenzy over the past few years in an attempt to breed dengue-free mosquitoes.

The laboratory where the ‘blood feeding’ has taken place over the past few years has been called a weird ‘breeding farm’.

The activity is a key part of the project to replace a type of mosquito called Aedes aegypti, which carries the dengue virus, by breeding them with those infected with a virus called Wolbachia, which is capable of reining in dengue. The dengue-free mosquitoes will later be reproduced.

To reproduce the Wolbachia virus-carrying mosquitoes, every Monday, participants have to put their arms and legs into cloth bags and suffer nasty bites from hundreds of mosquitoes at the same time.

Sponsored by Family Health International (FHI), one of the largest and most well-established nonprofit organizations active in international public health, with a mission to improve lives and family health worldwide, and held on Tri Nguyen island in Khanh Hoa province’s coastal Nha Trang city, the ‘breeding farm’ is well protected with multiple nets. Other conditions including temperature and humidity are also constantly checked.