Health promotes the 'Mosquito Alert' application as a surveillance and control tool

The Ministry of Health, through the Health Alerts and Emergencies Coordination Center (CCAES), has promoted the 'Mosquito Alert' project as a tool to improve the control and surveillance of mosquitoes that can transmit diseases.

This platform allows anyone to provide information on the presence and activity of mosquitoes through an application. 'Mosquito Alert' is a project coordinated by the Center for Advanced Studies in Blanes of the Superior Scientific Research Council (CSIC), the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the Center for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) and the Catalan Institute of Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA).

During its almost ten years of operation, it has demonstrated how citizen participation can improve the potential of surveillance and early detection of invasive species such as the tiger mosquito ('Aedes albopictus') or the Japanese mosquito ('Aedes japonicus'). Now, it will be included in the new National Plan for Prevention, Surveillance and Control of vector-borne diseases.

“The world is changing rapidly; we cannot face problems without changing the way we face them. It is necessary to innovate to achieve efficient surveillance systems. Citizen science is key to what concerns us today. We constantly generate information on our mobile phones, this has to be useful for vector control and many other public health issues”, commented the director of the CCAES, Fernando Simón, at the closing of the presentation of the National Plan.

In collaboration with the CCAES of the Ministry of Health, 'Mosquito Alert' has planned a communicative and informative action to promote citizen participation with the slogan 'If it stings, notify!'.

The objective is to study the expansion of the tiger mosquito beyond its known limit of distribution in Spain; generate the first map of bites in Spain to identify where and when there is a greater interaction between humans and mosquitoes; expand knowledge about the distribution of the Japanese mosquito in the Cantabrian coast; and detect the possible arrival of the yellow fever mosquito.

To this end, different outreach materials have been jointly created, available on the 'Mosquito Alert' website so that any interested institution (administration, provincial or municipal) can join the communicative/informative action, promoting participation in their territory.

All the information provided by the public within the framework of the project contributes to the scientific study and management of invasive mosquitoes. The data can be consulted and downloaded on the 'Mosquito Alert' map once it has been validated and classified by the experts of the National Digital Entomology Network (ReNED).

According to Roger Eritja, head of entomology in the project, “the validation by these experts, combined with artificial intelligence techniques provide great precision, consistency and speed to a real-time surveillance platform.”

With all this information, dynamic risk maps are being developed to allow a faster and more efficient response to mosquito-related public health problems.

The CEAB-CSIC has European funding through the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan of the Government of Spain, from the Next Generation EU funds. This financial support will contribute to the maintenance of the platform's infrastructure, as well as to the generation of an automated alert system with artificial intelligence and visualization tools in near real time, which will improve decision-making by health managers. public of the different administrations.