Researchers in Indonesia have found a way to fight disease-bearing mosquitoes by breeding a species of the insect which carries a kind of bacteria that prevents viruses like dengue from growing inside them.

Wolbachia is a common bacteria that occurs naturally in 60 percent of insect species, including some mosquitoes, fruit flies, moths, dragonflies and butterflies. It is not, however, found in dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, according to the non-profit World Mosquito Program (WMP), which initiated the research...