Story highlights 40,000 male mosquitoes will be released weekly during the 12-week trial

The mosquitoes are infected with a bacteria that interrupts their life cycle

(CNN) Thousands of mosquitoes infected with the Wolbachia bacteria were released in an area of the Florida Keys this week, in hopes of a new approach to control the disease-carrying female Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits Zika virus, Dengue fever and Chikungunya.

According to the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District , 20,000 male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes were released on Stock Island Tuesday for a field trial that will last 12 weeks. The mosquitoes, which do not bite, have been manually infected with a naturally occurring bacteria called Wolbachia.

Wolbachia is found in the cells of many insects but not mosquitoes, so the bacterium is manually injected into the mosquitoes in a lab in advance of the trial.

As explained in a presentation by the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District, when these infected male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes mate with female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, the eggs she produces won't hatch, thus they can't reproduce. The result, they hope, will be a reduced or eliminated population of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes and the viruses they spread, including Zika virus.

Zika is a great concern to pregnant women and those hoping to become pregnant because it can have devastating consequences for babies born to mothers who were infected while pregnant. One in 10 Zika-infected mothers had babies with related birth defects in the United States last year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Read More