Armbruster can discuss the mosquito population in various regions, how they transmit viruses and various
mosquito control strategies.
PAHO / WHO has been working with member countries for a number of years on vector control and in the coming weeks will convene experts from throughout the Americas to discuss new, more effective and integrated
mosquito control strategies that would help reduce not only Zika infections but also cases of dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and West Nile virus — all of which are spread by mosquitoes and are significant public health problems in the Americas.
Not exact matches
But we also study
mosquito biology because understanding how
mosquitoes eat, mate and defend themselves against infection can help us develop
strategies to
control or eradicate them.
And while vector -
control specialists are already attempting to wipe out
mosquito populations by introducing genetically modified sterile males into the field, that
strategy will only work if the females they encounter remain loyal to their sterile mates — behavior that potentially could be elicited with a
mosquito love potion informed by Duvall's research.
Scientists argue that a cocktail of biological pesticides and synthetic predator cues may become the future
strategy for
mosquito control.
Existing
strategies for
mosquito control often involve the use of pesticides that harm the environment.
Releases of Wolbachia - bearing
mosquitoes for pest
control already go on in other countries, such as Brazil, although with a different bacterial strain and a different
strategy.
Malariacontrol.net What it is: A part of Africa@Home, malariacontrol.net works with population models to determine the best
strategy to
control malaria — from researching vaccines to deploying
mosquito nets.
«The first is to understand the basic biology of the
mosquito mating system, and the second is to try to understand it in a way that we can develop novel
strategies for
controlling the
mosquito.
Those include ecology and invasion biology,
mosquito - virus interactions and developing new
control strategies and tools to detect dengue and chikungunya viruses.
New
strategies to
control mosquitoes are being developed that use «gene drive» - using the latest Crispr / Cas 9 genetic tools to make
mosquitoes infertile or unable to carry the malaria parasite.
A more important finding questions the
strategy of disease
control for West Nile, which has focused on eradicating a common, easily
controlled, ditch - dwelling
mosquito.
«The use of fish to
control mosquito disease vectors should be abandoned by authorities,» says Valter Azevedo - Santos, an ichthyologist at São Paulo State University in Botucatu, Brazil, who co-authored a letter objecting to the
strategy published in Science earlier this year.
Alistair Miles, lead author from the University of Oxford and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said: «The data we have generated are a unique resource for studying how
mosquito populations are responding to our current
control efforts, and for designing better technologies and
strategies for
mosquito control in the future.
«This gives us a good technological platform for developing advanced malaria -
control strategies, based on genetically modified
mosquitoes unable to transmit the disease, and for studying the biology of malaria parasites in their
mosquito hosts.»
Mosquitoes (Anopheles funestus) are vectors of malaria, and most
strategies for combating the spread of the disease focus on
control of
mosquito populations using insecticides.
«As a result, researchers are currently releasing Wolbachia - infected
mosquitoes into the wild as part of a
strategy to
control Dengue virus.
The
mosquito's 260 million DNA base pair sequence — together with the human genome and the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum now nearing completion — should open up new
strategies for
controlling the deadly disease, which kills some 1.5 million people each year, mostly African children.
Various
mosquito -
control strategies are currently used, including distributing
mosquito larvicides in the form of naturally occurring protein crystals, such as BinAB, which is produced by the bacterium Lysinibacillus sphaericus.
The findings may help guide
strategies to
control mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit.