Intrexon Corporation announced in a press release on Tuesday that their British biotechnology company subsidiary Oxitec has reached an agreement with local officials of Piracicaba in Brazil to open a new factory that produces sterile, genetically modified mosquitoes, Oxitec reports. The company will release these genetically modified mosquitoes in the wild to decrease the populations of the Aedes aegypti that spreads Zika virus, dengue fever and chikungunya.

"As the principal source for the fastest growing vector-borne infection in the world in Dengue Fever, as well as the increasingly challenging Zika virus, controlling the Aedes aegypti population provides the best defense against these serious diseases for which there are no cures," Oxitec CEO Hadyn Parry said.

The partnership between Oxitec and Piracicaba officials was an extension of the "Friendly Aedes aegypti Project" launched last April 2015 in the CECAP/Eldorado district. Since the introduction of the genetically modified mosquitoes, the number of wild mosquito larva decreased by 82 percent and the offspring often does not survive.

Oxitec first tested efficacy trials in some parts of Brazil as well as in Panama and the Cayman Islands that resulted to more than a 90 percent decrease of Aedes aegypti mosquito population. Brazil's National Biosafety Committee has already given Oxitec the approval to release the sterile insects to the rest of the country.

In a report by FOX News, the Zika virus is linked with a birth defect called microcephaly, where the brain of a newborn fails to develop resulting to an abnormally small head. The outbreak has hit Brazil hard with its Health Ministry reporting more than 3,530 cases of the rare birth defect since October 2015.

The number of cases in Brazil is very alarming as there were less than 150 cases reported in 2014, causing many pregnant women in the country to flee to the U.S. and Europe to avoid contracting the virus. The Brazilian government has also announced that a research for developing a vaccine against the Zika virus is already funded while eradication of mosquito habitats continues.

"Today there is only one way to fight the Zika virus, which is to destroy the mosquito's breeding grounds. The final victory against the virus will only come when we develop a vaccine against that disease," Brazil's Health Minister Marcelo Castro said.

The Zika outbreak has spread throughout Latin American and Caribbean countries as well as the U.S. with the first case reported in Oahu, Hawaii last Monday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already issued a travel alert to Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Martinique, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Roco, Suriname and Venezuela, per the CDC website.