MOZZIE MONITORS – DEC/19 – JAN/20

We had some great results from 2019! Our findings from the first year of Mozzie Monitors were published in the Science of the Total Environment. We were also featured in The Conversation discussing the importance of citizen science initiatives for enhancing public health in Australia. These outcomes were also presented at the Communicable Diseases Control Conference in Canberra, where we discussed the next steps of our program with other researchers, institutions and stakeholders.

Mozzie Monitors is the first program in the world to combine mosquito trapping with citizen science to deliver comprehensive surveillance of urban mosquitoes. Together, citizen scientists and researchers collected and identified more than 10,000 mosquitoes in the first year of the program. With infectious diseases spreading worldwide, it is crucial to track vector mosquitoes as an early warning system of disease and outbreak risks.

Mozzie Monitors began its 2019-20 trial in December and will run for three months in South Australia.

We are now in our next phase, aiming to improve the implementation of this program, and to deliver better public health literacy outcomes. The trial in SA will test two different methods of mosquito surveillance, comparing the BG-GAT trap vs a smartphone app. So far, we have had outstanding results recording the abundance of mosquitoes collected by traps as well as mosquito distribution, mapped by the iNaturalist app.

In December, 60 new people got involved in the program, using the BG-GAT trap and the iNaturalist app – while a number of previous Mozzies Monitors kept contributing with their observations across the state and from other parts of Australia.

In this first month, we have collected 1012 mozzies of 5 different species in people’s yards. Among them, some are major urban nuisance pests and potential vectors, especially of Ross River Virus.

Have a look at our blog for the last updates and outstanding photos shared on iNaturalist
https://hehp.wordpress.com/2020/01/06/mozzie-monitors-dec-19-jan-20/

Posted on January 7, 2020 03:36 AM by larissabrazsousa larissabrazsousa

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