A UN Environment-backed, citizen-led alliance launches the first global platform dedicated to citizen science techniques to tackle the monitoring of mosquito populations, a move which could help save lives.
It was chance that brought Andrew Lima face-to-face with the first aedes aegypti mosquito he’d seen on Capitol Hill, technically too far north of their survival range.
In October 2011, a friend found himself with a townhouse basement buzzing with unusually lively mosquitoes and called his mosquito expert friend Lima over.
Aedes aegypti is the highly adaptable, urban-friendly carrier of the potentially deadly dengue virus, as well as Zika, yellow fever and chikungunya.
Like other mosquitoes, including the anopheles mosquitoes that transmit malaria and culex mosquitos that transmit the West Nile virus, it loves warm weather — specifically a temperature range of 18 to 24 degrees Celsius (about 64 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit).
Which has led scientists to posit that a warming world is great news for mosquitoes as their liveable range increases, and worrying for humans, though there is not enough data to make a definite link between climate change and the emergence of tropical diseases like Zika.
Nonetheless, the worldwide incidence of dengue has risen 30-fold in the past 30 years and more countries are reporting their first outbreaks of the disease.
But the fact that Lima’s discovery was down to luck indicates that trained eyes and ears are needed all over the world for the widespread and systematic monitoring of mosquito populations — especially in an era of accelerated climate change.
On that note, a new initiative launched last week brings together thousands of scientists and volunteers from around the world to track and control mosquito-borne diseases.
The brainchild of a new alliance of citizen science organizations and UN Environment, the Global Mosquito Alert is the first global platform giving concerned citizens the chance to contribute their mosquito observations and possible solutions, which will augment information from government public health sources.
“The Global Mosquito Alert will offer for the first time a shared platform to allow people on the ground to share their observations and information with a large body of scientists to help them monitor emerging trends in real time and leverage citizen science for the global surveillance and control of disease-carrying mosquitos,” said Director of Science at UN Environment Jacqueline McGlade.
The data will be processed through Environment Live, the UN knowledge platform designed to collect, process and share the world’s best environmental science and research, allowing anyone to generate and access real-time data and tools.
This kind of information could help the international community, governments and regions be ready for outbreaks, put in place preventive measures such as public information campaigns, capacity building for healthcare workers and boosting vigilance of potential mosquito breeding grounds.
Over time, it could provide scientists with a sense of any range expansions and changes in patterns or mosquito behaviour.
There’s a lot at stake. Many outbreaks catch countries and regions by surprise, and the scramble to identify, respond and contain them can mean that many more people are infected and die before effective measures and capacities are put in place.
In a hyper-connected world, where mosquito larvae can travel by ship or venture into new warmer territories and the diseases they transmit can travel via human beings on planes, both vector and disease are more likely than ever to meet in new populations with no natural immunity.
According to the World Health Organization, mosquito-borne diseases are estimated to cause 447,860 deaths and infect 347.8 million people each year. In 2015, there were an estimated 429 000 malaria deaths worldwide, the majority occurring in the Africa.
Despite this, and because of the complexity of many vector-borne diseases, there are no vaccines widely commercially available yet for malaria, dengue, chikungunya or Zika.
As Global Mosquito Alert joins the ranks of early warning outbreak surveillance networks, it could contribute significantly to saving lives.
