Mosquito Day

Mosquito Day

Vectores de PR

On August 20, 2019 and every year, it is the “World Mosquito Day” to commemorate the British doctor Sir Ronald Ross’ 1987 discovery that the female mosquitoes transmit malaria between humans. It is dedicated to the Anopheles species that transmit malaria, but also to the female mosquitos of other species responsible for many more diseases.

Today, In Puerto Rico there are more than 30 species but only one species the Aedes Aegypti’s female mosquito transmits (Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika).

We went to the public elementary school, Jacinto López Martínez, with the entity called Vector Control and the Municipality of Dorado to explain to 60 students from 5th grade the mosquitoes’ life cycle, how to avoid its propagation and the importance of its elimination. Vector Control is dedicated in researching or investigating how to control the Aedes Aegypti population with the training and education of the people of Puerto Rico. They have been very instrumental in our project.

The Rotary Foundation focuses on 6 areas:

  • Peace and conflict prevention/resolution
  • Disease prevention and treatment
  • Water and sanitation
  • Maternal and child health
  • Basic education and literacy
  • Economic and community development

The Dorado Rotary Club is currently working on the area of Disease prevention and treatment. The Rotary Foundation has given the Dorado Rotary Club a Global Grant to communicate and educate the town of Dorado in how to avoid the propagation of the mosquitoes in order to avoid these diseases.

We started working with 3 communities by putting adult traps (AGO) and egg traps (OVI) with the purpose of finding how many feminine mosquitoes are found (there should not be more than 3) and collect them to see what insecticides they are resistant to.

The following data has been collected:

  • From June to August indicating an average of 29 female mosquitoes obtained in the adult traps, surpassing the limit of 3.
  • A questionnaire was given to 95 people to get a feeling of what they knew of the mosquito and the diseases. Some did not know that the mosquito propagates in water. The eggs are laid on the walls of a recipient and even if the water is emptied and the recipient not scrapped, if you put water back in the recipient several months later, they will still be alive.
  • Another result is that the adult mosquito is resistant to all the insecticides that are out there and therefore the mosquito must be killed with larvicides at the larvae stage.

We will be spraying these 3 communities of Dorado and the data will be collected every Monday for a year to see results before and after spraying with a larvicide.

For more information, visit Unidad de Control de Vectores de Puerto Rico.