Research Project
8981549
? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Lethal ovitraps are a modification of a common mosquito population monitoring technology: adult females are enticed to a water container to lay their eggs and are exposed to a lethal dose of pesticide. The Autocidal Gravid Ovitrap (AGO) improves this technology in several ways. It has been modified to make it more attractive to gravid Aedes aegypti. The killing agent is an adhesive, thus extending the useful field life while negating the need for insecticides. To-date, the AGO has been optimized using hand-made devices. Further development of the technology requires area-wide studies to determine epidemiological performance, and current manufacturing would be prohibitively expensive. Additionally, hand-crafting is not practical for quality control of a commercial product. This project aims to modify the current AGO design to make it suitable for mass production. The goal is to produce an efficacious, cost-effective, and durable AGO. Long-term objectives include optimizing use of the AGO for control of arbovirus-vectoring mosquitoes to prevent outbreaks of dengue and other diseases, and extending the technology for use with other container-breeding species of mosquitoes. The final result is expected to be a commercially viable product for professional and home use. Although an initial review suggests that the final product should be injection molded, other plastic-forming techniques may be used. Development of a mass-producible AGO will use an iterative process of design modeling, digital validation, prototyping, and testing against caged and/or wild mosquitoes. A team of academic mold engineering, plastic molding and insect trap design experts will collaborate in this process. Effectiveness of each design will be tested in competitive cage bioassays under field or semi-field conditions. Container-breeding mosquitoes such as Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus are day-biting nuisance mosquitoes. They are also vectors of serious viral diseases, including dengue fever, yellow fever, and chikungunya. Currently >2.5 billion people in tropical countries are at risk of infectio with dengue fever. The mission of the CDC-NCEZID is to detect, prevent, and control zoonotic infectious diseases. Dengue fever and chikungunya are not currently major threats to US residents, but these diseases are spreading as their mosquito vectors expand their ranges. The AGO will be both a monitoring tool to check the spread of these increasingly invasive species, and an effective control option for use in outbreaks by creating area-wide suppression of mosquito populations. It promises to be an important tool in the long term battle to control nuisance mosquitoes, improve quality of life for people in affected areas, and prevent vector-borne diseases.
