Entries Tagged 'Mosquito News' ↓

CHILDREN as young as 10 are being trained to be dengue busters, collecting and studying the mosquitoes that spread the potentially life-threatening disease.

Queensland Health, James Cook University and Cairns Regional Council are testing a dengue fever education campaign in Cairns schools, in an attempt to raise awareness of the disease from an early age.

As part of the project, students in years 5 to 7 are taught how to safely collect Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, breed them, and observe and record their life cycle, before disposing of the insects.

Education Queensland regional science manager Adam Hooper said there was no danger of catching dengue from the studies.  Read more @ http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2010/03/23/101191_local-news.html

Here’s a mosquito trap that may rightfully be called sexist.  

The “MozziQuit”, developed by Ignatius Noronha, a Mangalore based innovator, attracts and kills female mosquitoes to stop them from breeding.

Noronha was working for an American manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia until he set upon his new mission of developing a cost effective device to kill mosquitoes.

Explaining the science behind attracting mosquitoes, he said, “Mosquitoes normally detect human presence based on the carbon dioxide we exhale. 

There is a special additive I have added to the device, which attracts the mosquitoes.”

Read more  http://www.ptinews.com/news/495138_Eco-friendly-mosquito-traps-to-hit-markets-soon

Washington, (IANS) Researchers have come up with the cheapest and most efficient way so far to trap adult mosquitoes and the deadly diseases they carry, from malaria to the West Nile Virus.

Emory University (E-U) has filed a provisional patent on the Prokopack mosquito aspirator, which uses a battery-powered motor to suck up live mosquitoes for analysis.

In both field and lab tests, Prokopack outperformed the current gold standard for resting mosquito surveillance – the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Backpack Aspirator (CDC-BP).

Mosquito-borne diseases rank among the world’s top killers, and Vazquez-Prokopec, inventor and a post-doctoral researcher in environmental studies, hopes that more affordable and efficient surveillance methods will help save lives.  Read more @ http://www.india-forums.com/news/article.asp?id=221748

According to Elizabeth (Biz) Collins of the North Fork Mosquito Abatement District, it’s almost unheard of to have an all-volunteer trapping program. But that is exactly what was accomplished this past season in the North Fork, and hopefully with more volunteers, can be expanded next season.

Volunteer have to set out the traps and pick them up at specific times. The traps, due to the life of the batteries, need to be set out between 5 and 7 p.m. and picked up between 7 and 8 the next morning. If the traps are picked up late or set out too early, the batteries fail and the mosquitoes can escape making the sample useless.

Trappers donate their time, cars and gas. They receive no reimbursements for their work. After the crew was laid off for the season due to a shortfall in tax revenue, the district had their first case of mosquitoes with West Nile Virus.

The volunteer program has grown from two people in 2008 to eight volunteers by the end of that season. In 2009 up to 13 people volunteered. For 2010, the volunteer program is aiming to grow to 20 people.

Colombo: Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry has taken immediate preventive measures to combat Dengue fever, which started to spread again with recent heavy rains, Ministry sources said. Changes in current weather have resulted in several deaths inflicted by the Dengue virus, sources added.

The Ministry has alerted the local institutions and the public to clean their surroundings periodically, to prevent the breeding of mosquitoes carrying the dengue virus in stagnant water collected in discarded containers such as plastic cups, used tires, broken bottles, flower pots, etc.

Prevention of mosquito bites is another way of preventing the disease, the health officials advised. This can be achieved by using insect repellents, mosquito traps, or mosquito nets. 

Source: http://www.colombopage.com/archive_091/Nov1258472245RA.html

The widespread flooding that has closed roads and blocked people from their homes has also given a new lease on life to mosquitoes.

Shannon Rider, interim director of the Ouachita Parish Mosquito Abatement District, said the parish has seen a mosquito population higher than normal for this time of year because of the swollen rivers and bayous across northeastern Louisiana.  As it does every year, district staff pulled mosquito traps that tested positive for the West Nile virus, but the positive results didn’t come until late June.

“The trap counts are actually low. but we know they are higher than for normal for the fall,” Rider said. “These numbers have been continually the same since the rain started. Right now we’re still spraying with our trucks and waiting to see what happens when water goes down.”

The  mosquito season has been especially long this year. In the spring, unseasonably warm temperatures brought an early start and the region’s standing water has extended it into November.

Apart from the region drying out, a cold snap could solve the lingering mosquito problem, Rider said. “The temperature varies, depending on the species, but a freeze would definitely help. If no new eggs hatch, what the trucks don’t get, the adults die of old age. we’ll just go into the normal fall or winter season.”

The National Weather Service does not forecast freezing temperatures for the next 10 days.  Read More http://www.thenewsstar.com/article/20091106/UPDATES01/91106046

Science Blog: Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have identified the dominant odor naturally produced in humans and birds that attracts the blood-feeding Culex mosquitoes, which transmit West Nile virus and other life-threatening diseases.

Entomology professor Walter Leal and postdoctoral researcher Zain Syed found that nonanal (sounds like NAWN-uh-nawl) is the powerful semiochemical that triggers the mosquitoes’ keen sense of smell, directing them toward a blood meal. A semiochemical is a chemical substance or mixture that carries a message.

Leal and Syed found that nonanal acts synergistically with carbon dioxide, a known mosquito attractant. “We baited mosquito traps with a combination of nonanal and carbon dioxide and we were drawing in as many as 2,000 a night in Yolo County, near Davis,” Syed said. “Nonanal, in combination with carbon dioxide, increased trap captures by more than 50 percent, compared to traps baited with carbon dioxide alone.”  Read more @ http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/uc-davis-researchers-identify-dominant-chemical-attracts-mosquitoes-humans-26628.html

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced 76 grants of US$100,000 each to pursue ideas for transforming health in developing countries.  The grants, under a programme known as Grand Challenges Exploration, support researchers across 16 countries, including nine in Europe and Africa with ideas as diverse as using the power of sunlight to kill malaria-causing mosquito larvae and developing a device that repels mosquitoes without insecticides.

Mr Fredros Okumu of Ifakara Health Institute, a Kenyan based in Tanzania, is one of the winners.  His research is within the “Create new tools to accelerate the eradication of malaria” category.

As malaria-transmitting mosquitoes spend a greater part of their lives outside human dwellings than inside, Mr Okumu is looking to fabricate outdoor decoy sites to attract and trap breeding, resting and feeding mosquitoes.

They will then develop a location model to guide optimal placement of the devices, and conduct a village trial to test the efficacy of the decoys in reducing malaria transmission.   Read more @ http://www.nation.co.ke/News/africa/-/1066/676456/-/135nm4qz/-/

Concerns that increases in the ambient temperature could result in tropical diseases being carried by mosquitoes in Ireland have prompted the Health Protection Surveillance Centre to ask the Fingal County Council, in collaboration with University College Cork, to undertake the trapping and identification of Ireland’s 16 known species of mosquitoes. Fingal was chosen because of  problems it has experienced in previous summers with mosquito infestation.

The researchers will be attempting to identify whether any disease-carrying species have infiltrated their numbers.  None of the existing Irish mosquitoes is thought to carry any vector-born diseases such as malaria, however researchers will be on the look-out for the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes Albopictus) in particular, which was implicated in the spread of Chikungunya fever in Italy in 2007.  

Read more in the Irish Times

The arrival of West Nile virus in Colorado has increased interest in mosquito management around the home and on small acreages, and in personal protection from mosquito bites.

The fact sheet 5.526, Mosquito Management covers the basics of controlling mosquitoes around the home and of personal protection options. The following is intended to provide more detail on mosquito repellents, mosquito control devices, larvicides (insecticides targeted at mosquito larvae), and adulticides (insecticides targeted at mosquito adults).

Mosquito Control Devices – Mosquito Traps
Attract and kill devices become more effective as CO2 and octenol attractants are added. Also, efficacy is strongly influenced by the manner in which the attractants are dispersed from the trap. The most effective of these traps has been shown to be as effective as deet in a contained environment (large outdoor tent) with a known number of mosquitoes. Read more at http://www.ext.colostate.edu/westnile/mosquito_mgt.html