2023-06-09 12:00:38
Where are those disease-causing bloodsuckers? In Taiwan, they have recently started using a cart that can detect mosquitoes and help with extermination.
Every year, about half a million people end up in the hospital from Dengue, or dengue fever. Of these, nearly 25,000 die as a result of the tropical infectious disease. The spreader of the Dengue virus, the mosquito Temples of the Egyptiansoften entrenched in the sewage system. The Taiwanese have found a solution to that. A group of researchers from, among others, the Taiwan National Mosquito-born Diseases Control Research Center built one unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) that can monitor the insects and help control them. The results have been published in the trade journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
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Brood nests
A Dengueinfection proceeds like a kind of flu, with fever and muscle aches, but also with a skin rash similar to measles. Most people recover afterwards, but in some the virus also settles in the blood. Heavy bleeding (hemorrhagic fever) or someone suffers from extremely low blood pressure (Dengue shock syndrome). This can be fatal, especially in children the risk is high.
It is therefore important to keep the number of Dengue mosquitoes under control. Because of the heat and high humidity, the sewer is an ideal place for the insects to lay eggs. Once the mosquitoes are adults, they fly out of the sewers en masse.
Three times less mosquitoes
The current research team decided to tackle this problem in five districts of the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The UGV they developed for this purpose consists of three parts: a crawling robot, a cable cart and a real time monitoring system. The latter contains a camera that makes high-resolution video images of every nook and cranny in the sewer system. The robot moves at 5 meters per minute and works about five hours a day.
The system found hotbeds in about 20 percent of the sewers examined. He was able to recognize both larvae and adult mosquitoes. The researchers then called in the control teams, who treated the sewers with insecticide or a hot high-pressure hose. The amount of mosquitoes in the area was about three times less after the treatment.
Quite a good result, but according to the team it can be even better. By making the UGV smaller and extending the battery life, it should be possible to search for breeding nests better and longer. And then we will hopefully be one step closer to reducing Dengue-causing mosquitoes in the cities.
Targeted use
“Dengue is still a huge problem worldwide, so any new strategy to tackle it is very welcome,” says mosquito expert Sander Koenraadt of Wageningen University. “The researchers estimate that sewers are home to about 20 percent of mosquito populations. In the event of an outbreak (or threat thereof), insecticides are sprayed into the living environment, including sewers. Of course, all that poison is undesirable, so if we can use it in a more targeted way – like with the help of this robot – that would be better.”
Yet Koenraadt is also critical. “However, this is a very laborious system and there seems to be a lot of time and effort in the inspections themselves. So that is a point where improvement is needed. The heat treatment with a high-pressure sprayer is also a good alternative to the poison treatment.”
Sources: PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, PLOS via EurekAlert!
Image: Oberholster Venita/Pixabay
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