The bark of high-pitched mosquitoes is annoying, but scientists have developed an app that uses the sound to detect dangerous mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes kill hundreds of thousands of people each year by spreading the microorganisms that cause diseases such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever. However, researcher Haripiriya Weidehi Narayanan says anyone with a mobile phone can tackle these diseases by using the Abuzz app to identify mosquitoes.
“If you find a mosquito around you, just open the phone, open the app, point the phone at the mosquito and press the record button,” said Narayanan, who began working on the project as a graduate student at Stanford University. .. She is currently in the Department of Immunology, University of California, Los Angeles.
“So when a mosquito flaps and flies around, it makes that sound, that annoying buzzing sound … that sound is recorded by the Abuzz app,” she added.
Targeting mosquitoes is the best approach to controlling these diseases, as many mosquito-borne diseases have no cure or vaccine.
“When tackling mosquito-induced illnesses such as malaria and dengue, the most important step is to know where the mosquitoes are,” Narayanan said.
Listen to the answer
Traditional mosquito surveillance can be time consuming and costly as it requires labor-intensive capture and trained scientists to identify small insects.
According to Manu Prakash, a professor of biotechnology at Stanford University and principal investigator of the project, there are about 3,500 species of mosquitoes, but only about 40 are dangerous to humans.
“Are there annoying mosquitoes or potentially dangerous mosquitoes in your backyard?” Prakash said.
To answer that question, the Prakash team decided to listen. When a mosquito hits its wings up and down, it makes a distinctive humming sound. All mosquito species create a slightly different topic.
Users use the Abuzz app on their mobile phones to record mosquito sounds for just a second or two. The app compares this record with the database to determine the type of mosquito.
With this tool (cell phones and smartphones) already in the pockets of billions of people, the team says it will be able to monitor mosquitoes on a much larger scale than before.
“It doesn’t require a flashy smartphone, and a minimal basic cell phone is sufficient,” Prakash said.
Combine information
This app crowdsources mosquito information from around the world to create a map of where dangerous mosquitoes are found. This helps scientists and health officials predict where disease outbreaks can occur and where mosquito control is targeted.
Prakash believes that this type of community involvement is the key to addressing major issues such as mosquito-borne diseases.
“The more people involved, the better the tool. So, literally, if hundreds of thousands of people record mosquitoes every day, like the communities that need it, especially around the world. It’s something like that. ”
The· Abaz app It will be available for free download next month or within two months.
Another group of researchers at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom is developing a similar mobile app (called Mozzwear) that sounds to identify malaria mosquitoes.
