Every year on June 15, World Dengue Day focuses global attention on one of the world's fastest-growing public health threats.
Dengue is a debilitating disease that devastates families and communities and overloads health systems. There is no cure, and so prevention and control are essential.
And the numbers demand urgent global attention:
To mark World Dengue Day 2026, Debug opened its Singapore facility for a tour for Tank Talks Asia, a leading podcast covering technology, innovation, and initiatives shaping the region's future.
The Singapore facility is Debug's first international R&D hub. The facility produces more than 10 million male mosquitoes every week. It is where Google's engineering, AI, and robotics capabilities meet world-class mosquito biology, and where the work to protect communities across Southeast Asia and beyond is currently underway.
Yanni Yoong, who runs the Singapore facility, led the Tank Talks Asia hosts Manisha Tank and Andrew Clark on a full tour, walking them through the entire process, from mosquito breeding and sorting to release.
She then sat down with Manisha to share more about the mission and science behind Debug.
Among the highlights were:
Watch the Tank Talk Asia episode to look into our mission, process, and the science and technology behind Debug, as well as the team's pride in helping change the trajectory of this disease.
Author: Monica Tsai
For the past eight years, the Debug team in Singapore has been quietly doing some of the most important work in our global mission: rearing, sorting, and releasing millions of Wolbachia male mosquitoes to suppress the risks of dengue.
On May 12, 2026, we announced the next chapter: the expansion of our Singapore facility into our largest adult mosquito production and R&D hub in the Asia Pacific.
The expansion received strong traction from media publications across Singapore and the ASEAN region, with coverage capturing what this expansion means: not just for Singapore, but for the region and the world.
Among the highlights:
To get up close, the Debug team and I opened the factory doors for a special tour, giving journalists, photographers, and videographers an in-person look at the process of producing 10 million male mosquitoes per week.
Coverage matters because expansion matters.
Asia bears 70% of the global dengue burden. Dengue threatens 4 billion people worldwide, and the tools available to most communities, such as chemical pesticides, larvicides, and fogging, are becoming less effective as mosquitoes develop resistance. Debug's approach is different: non-biting male mosquitoes carrying Wolbachia, a naturally occurring bacterium, are released into targeted areas. When they mate with wild females, the resulting eggs do not hatch. The population declines progressively and measurably, without chemicals, without GMOs.
The expansion builds on that foundation. By anchoring our R&D in Singapore, we are developing next-generation solutions built in Asia and for Asia. Singapore is our blueprint: proving that urban-scale suppression is possible and that the technology can be tailored to local climates, species, and needs.
We are proud of what the Debug Singapore team, including our scientists, engineers, and production and field operations staff, has built here. And grateful, again, to the journalists who took the time to understand the science and tell this important public health story.
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