A British company plans to build a centralized facility with the capacity to produce one billion genetically modified mosquito eggs every week.

Oxitec said the plant in Oxfordshire, England, will support what it characterized as an increasing global demand for its “Friendly” mosquitoes. The nonbiting male mosquitoes have been genetically modified to pass on a self-limiting gene to their offspring so that they do not survive to maturity, reducing wild populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread diseases like chikungunya, dengue, yellow fever and Zika.