Bill Gates-funded company did not cause malaria ‘outbreak’ in the US

A number of widely shared posts suggest that malaria outbreaks are happening in the “exact places” that a company backed by Bill Gates has been releasing mosquitoes. The posts also note that “it must be a coincidence that from 2003-2023 there wasn’t one case of Malaria spread by mosquitos [sic]”.

The posts on Twitter and Facebook appear to be referring to locally-transmitted malaria cases recorded in the United States—the first such cases in the country in 20 years. But there is no evidence this has been caused by a Bill Gates-backed company which produces genetically modified mosquitoes, as the posts appear to imply. The company in question has itself described the suggestion as “scientifically impossible”.

Health misinformation that spreads at scale can introduce confusion about the causes and treatments of illnesses, and distract from or undermine medical consensus and public health messaging.

Where in the world are malaria cases “suddenly” rising?

The posts don’t mention any particular location, but considering the “2003-2023” time frame referenced, it seems likely that they are referring to the United States. In 2023, 10 cases of locally acquired mosquito-transmitted malaria were identified in Florida, Texas, Maryland and Arkansas; the first of any such cases in the US since 2003.

Each year there are around 2,000 cases of malaria reported in the US, most of these are contracted while people travel to other countries, or spread when an infected person returns.

On a global scale, hundreds of thousands of people die from malaria each year. Cases have been increasing in recent years, with the World Health Organisation reporting that global malaria cases rose by 16 million to 249 million between 2019 and 2022.

Bill Gates-backed company did not cause locally-transmitted malaria cases

As we wrote when we previously fact checked this claim, the posts are likely referring to Oxitec, a biotechnology company that has received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Foundation did not fund this particular project, however.

Oxitec produces genetically modified mosquitoes intended to be released into the wild to mate with local pests, to produce offspring that will not survive into adulthood, thereby reducing local mosquito populations. 

The mosquitoes, which were first released in Florida in April 2021 with the help of Florida Keys Mosquito Control, belong to a species called Aedes aegypti and are all male. The only mosquitoes that can transmit malaria are infected female Anopheles mosquitoes: a different sex and genus.

Furthermore, male mosquitoes don’t have the proper body parts to pierce human skin, so Oxitec’s mosquitoes don’t bite.

Given that the mosquitoes Oxitec has released are male Aedes aegypti, rather than female Anopheles, these insects can’t be the cause of any transmission of malaria.

And as for the four states which saw locally-transmitted malaria cases in 2023, Oxitec has only released its mosquitoes in Florida. So the increase in cases did not occur in the “exact places” they were released, as the posts claim.

A spokesperson for Oxitec told Full Fact last year there was “absolutely no truth to these claims” and that they were “scientifically impossible”.

The increasing cases in the US are likely to have been caused by female Anopheles mosquitoes, which, as the CDC stated last year, are “found throughout many regions of the country” and “are capable of transmitting malaria if they feed on a malaria-infected person”.

Full Fact checks a lot of claims about Bill Gates, especially on the subject of public health due to his charitable work in the area. We’ve previously fact checked false claims that Mr Gates is seeking to introduce “maggot milk” into the general population’s food supply, that his Foundation paralysed 300,000 children in India following a vaccine trial, and that he plans to “euthanise billions” by attacking the global food supply to create a market for his bird flu vaccine.