▲ ▼ Safe, affordable and efficient mosquito control
Mosquitoes cause millions of deaths each year. Diseases borne by them such as Chikungunya, Zika, Dengue, West Nile virus, Malaria, Yellow fever claim its victims; especially children from underdeveloped and developing countries.
Worldwide incidence of dengue has risen 30-fold in the past 30 years, and more countries are reporting their first outbreaks of the disease due to re-emergence of mosquito vector viruses.
Current prevention techniques is focussed on reducing the adult mosquito populations, controlling mosquito larvae and protecting individuals from mosquito bites.
Mosquito population control revolves around the use of insecticides, introducing predators which feed on mosquitoes and educating the population to avoid creating breeding grounds for mosquitoes; this effort requires large undertaking by the government hence efficiency may vary.
Personal mosquito bite prevention techniques includes Insecticidal nets which affect the mobility, Electronic traps which don't work & kill other useful insects, Co2 based traps which are expensive. Hence there's a need gap for affordable, efficient, mosquito control.
When I lived in Maine, USA, there was a store Called LL BEAN. They had these little Keychain that emitted a sound that when the battery was full, and it could maintain the right pitch it would keep them away, after a while the battery would start to die and it wouldn't work, just be annoying. Haven't had to deal with them since I moved to the desert, but I am sure the tech has advanced in the past couple decades.
Ultrasonic sound based mosquito repellent were all fad in early 2000s and there even computer programs for that but unfortunately they do absolutely nothing to repel mosquitos - https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20669080 .
Totally agree with this. With the average rate of laying eggs every 3 days, these guys multiply super fast.
True. We can't kill away all mosquitoes as that will cause an ecological issue, we need to kill only those mosquito species which act as the vector for diseases. Ways to kill mosquitoes using genetically modified male mosquitoes which doesn't allow the offspring to reach adulthood, using bacteria to infect mosquitoes have been successful[1].
Thanks for the link Abishek.
Came across this as well that Singapore is doing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJfBmHgSxBA
A new Malaria blocking bug (Microsporidia MB) has been found in Mosquitoes which protect them against Malaria 100% of the time - https://www.bbc.com/news/health-52530828 .
The most effective malaria vaccine yet discovered - https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/04/23/great-malaria-vaccine-news