A new paper in the international science journal Nature details findings by a group of Australian researchers that could help stop the spread of dengue fever. 

Researchers infected a group of mosquitoes with a bacteria called Wolbachia, and released them back into a greater population. An unexpected result: The bacteria prevented the mosquitoes from contracting dengue. In layman’s terms, the infection was acting as a vaccine.

The next step for researchers will be to conduct disease trials by visiting parts of the world like Vietnam, where dengue is prevalent, and track whether infecting mosquitoes with strains of Wolbachia actually helps reduce the spread of dengue in humans.

There are more than 50 million cases of the potentially deadly disease in more than 100 countries every year, and Hawaii is one of the few regions of the U.S. that finds cases of dengue.