Incidence Of Mosquito-borne Diseases Research Articles

Using image segmentation models to analyse high-resolution earth observation data: new tools to monitor disease risks in changing environments.

In the near future, the incidence of mosquito-borne diseases may expand to new sites due to changes in temperature and rainfall patterns caused by climate change. Therefore, there is a need to use recent technological advances to improve vector surveillance methodologies. Unoccupied Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), often called drones, have been used to collect high-resolution imagery to map detailed information on mosquito habitats and direct control measures to specific areas. Supervised classification approaches have been largely used to automatically detect vector habitats. However, manual data labelling for model training limits their use for rapid responses. Open-source foundation models such as the Meta AI Segment Anything Model (SAM) can facilitate the manual digitalization of high-resolution images. This pre-trained model can assist in extracting features of interest in a diverse range of images. Here, we evaluated the performance of SAM through the Samgeo package, a Python-based wrapper for geospatial data, as it has not been applied to analyse remote sensing images for epidemiological studies. We tested the identification of two land cover classes of interest: water bodies and human settlements, using different UAV acquired imagery across five malaria-endemic areas in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. We employed manually placed point prompts and text prompts associated with specific classes of interest to guide the image segmentation and assessed the performance in the different geographic contexts. An average Dice coefficient value of 0.67 was obtained for buildings segmentation and 0.73 for water bodies using point prompts. Regarding the use of text prompts, the highest Dice coefficient value reached 0.72 for buildings and 0.70 for water bodies. Nevertheless, the performance was closely dependent on each object, landscape characteristics and selected words, resulting in varying performance. Recent models such as SAM can potentially assist manual digitalization of imagery by vector control programs, quickly identifying key features when surveying an area of interest. However, accurate segmentation still requires user-provided manual prompts and corrections to obtain precise segmentation. Further evaluations are necessary, especially for applications in rural areas.

Detecting Aedes aegypti mosquitoes through audio classification with convolutional neural networks

The incidence of mosquito-borne diseases is significant in under-developed regions, mostly due to the lack of resources to implement aggressive control measurements against mosquito proliferation. A potential strategy to raise community awareness regarding mosquito proliferation is building a live map of mosquito incidences using smartphone apps and crowdsourcing. In this paper, we explore the possibility of identifying Aedes aegypti mosquitoes using machine learning techniques and audio analysis captured from commercially available smartphones. In summary, we downsampled Aedes aegypti wingbeat recordings and used them to train a convolutional neural network (CNN) through supervised learning. As a feature, we used the recording spectrogram to represent the mosquito wingbeat frequency over time visually. We trained and compared three classifiers: a binary, a multiclass, and an ensemble of binary classifiers. In our evaluation, the binary and ensemble models achieved accuracy of 97.65% (±0.55) and 94.56% (±0.77), respectively, whereas the multiclass had an accuracy of 78.12% (±2.09). The best sensitivity was observed in the ensemble approach (96.82% ± 1.62), followed by the multiclass for the particular case of Aedes aegypti (90.23% ± 3.83) and the binary (88.49% ± 6.68). The binary classifier and the multiclass classifier presented the best balance between precision and recall, with F1-measure close to 90%. Although the ensemble classifier achieved the lowest precision, thus impairing its F1-measure (79.95% ± 2.13), it was the most powerful classifier to detect Aedes aegypti in our dataset.

Awareness, knowledge and practices about mosquito borne diseases in patients of tertiary care hospital in Navi Mumbai

Background: Mosquito borne diseases are a serious public health concern in India. The incidence of Mosquito borne diseases is linked with economic and social development of the community. The objectives of the study were to assess the awareness, knowledge and practices about mosquito borne diseases in study population and explore the various myths about mosquito borne diseases among them.Methods: It is a hospital based cross-sectional study and the study participants will be patients getting admitted for any reason and having fever, in the general medicine male and female ward. This study period was 3 month (January to March 2017). Results: Total 150 patients admitted in male and female medicine ward were included in the study out of them 84 were male and 66 were female patients. It was observed that educated participants had more knowledge about mosquitoes borne diseases. Conclusions: Most of the participants didn’t know that clean water could be a source of breeding of mosquitoes. Many myths are prevalent in the study population about mosquitoes borne diseases.

Effectiveness and economic assessment of routine larviciding for prevention of chikungunya and dengue in temperate urban settings in Europe.

In the last decades, several European countries where arboviral infections are not endemic have faced outbreaks of diseases such as chikungunya and dengue, initially introduced by infectious travellers from tropical endemic areas and then spread locally via mosquito bites. To keep in check the epidemiological risk, interventions targeted to control vector abundance can be implemented by local authorities. We assessed the epidemiological effectiveness and economic costs and benefits of routine larviciding in European towns with temperate climate, using a mathematical model of Aedes albopictus populations and viral transmission, calibrated on entomological surveillance data collected from ten municipalities in Northern Italy during 2014 and 2015.We found that routine larviciding of public catch basins can limit both the risk of autochthonous transmission and the size of potential epidemics. Ideal larvicide interventions should be timed in such a way to cover the month of July. Optimally timed larviciding can reduce locally transmitted cases of chikungunya by 20% - 33% for a single application (dengue: 18–22%) and up to 43% - 65% if treatment is repeated four times throughout the season (dengue: 31–51%). In larger municipalities (>35,000 inhabitants), the cost of comprehensive larviciding over the whole urban area overcomes potential health benefits related to preventing cases of disease, suggesting the adoption of more localized interventions. Small/medium sized towns with high mosquito abundance will likely have a positive cost-benefit balance. Involvement of private citizens in routine larviciding activities further reduces transmission risks but with disproportionate costs of intervention. International travels and the incidence of mosquito-borne diseases are increasing worldwide, exposing a growing number of European citizens to higher risks of potential outbreaks. Results from this study may support the planning and timing of interventions aimed to reduce the probability of autochthonous transmission as well as the nuisance for local populations living in temperate areas of Europe.

A cross sectional study to assess perception regarding mosquito borne diseases in urban areas of Belagavi city

Background: Mosquito borne diseases are one of the major health problems in India. Due to growing population, unplanned urbanization, lack of awareness about the diseases and increasing number of slums in urban areas, the incidence of mosquito borne diseases is increasing simultaneously. To assess knowledge about mosquito borne disease and to impart awareness regarding prevention of mosquito borne diseases in the community. Methods: The present study was carried out in the urban field practice areas of department of Community Medicine, J. N. Medical College, Belagavi. Data was collected by systemic random sampling. Data was compiled, tabulated and analyzed using proportions.Results: Out of 360 participants, 45.8 % were in the age group of 20-29; male participants constituted about 56.3% and 43.7% were female. 4.4 % people belong to class I and 41.4 % belongs to class IV socio-economic status. 19.3 % were illiterates and 28.6% lived in Kachha house. 78.33% study subjects knew about mosquitoes borne diseases, 31.3 % people had the knowledge that mosquitoes can cause malaria, dengue and chikungunya, 36.6% consider drainage and garbage as common breeding place. 57.8% people use mosquito coils to prevent mosquito bite. 61.4% had knowledge about disease through TV and newspapers. Conclusions: Lack of awareness and knowledge about mosquito borne disease in low socio economic status and illiterates and also about breeding sites of mosquitoes.

Cause of Encephalopathy Short Febrile Illness in Patients: A Case Study of Tertiary Care Hospital in Kumaon Region of Uttarakhand

A dominance of males was seen in our study. Maximum numbers of patients were seen in age group of 20-40 years. No correlation between the age and etiology could be established. No significant difference in clinical features on the basis of the geographical distribution of patients could be established in our study. All the patients in our study were having infective/inflammatory pathology of central nervous system. In our study the incidence of mosquito borne diseases (mosquito borne encephalitis and cerebral malaria) was significant. This finding was in contrast to the popular belief that there are fewer incidences of mosquito borne diseases is low in hilly areas. Few studies from Nepal and other hilly areas also had similar finding. Total viral serology was not established in all the viral encephalitis cases. Similar findings were seen from studies in developed countries.

The distribution and occurrence of mosquito larvae (Diptera: Culicidae) in the Tongatapu Island Group, Kingdom of Tonga

The global expansion of air, sea and land transport networks has greatly enhanced the spread of mosquitoes internationally. In the Pacific, the incidence of mosquito-borne diseases has been increasing in recent years. The Kingdom of Tonga has had numerous disease outbreaks from dengue fever and chikungunya viruses over recent years. Previous research has catalogued mosquito species occurrences and distributions throughout Tonga. However, it is unknown whether new species have arrived in Tonga, and if distribution of previously found species has changed since the last comprehensive survey in 2006. Consequently, we conducted a mosquito larval survey between November and December 2013 at 84 sites across four islands (Tongatapu, Pangaimotu, 'Oneata and 'Eua) in the Tongatapu Island Group to record the distribution and occurrence of mosquito larvae. Larvae were more frequently collected in artificial (e.g. abandoned car tyres, 55-gallon plastic drums and plastic containers) than natural (e.g. pools, ponds and tree holes) habitats. Larvae of nine mosquito species were collected in the Tongatapu Island Group: Aedes aegypti, A. albopictus, A. tongae, A. horrescens, A. vexans nocturnus, Culex annulirostris, C. albinervis, C. quinquefasciatus and C. sitiens. Eight species were collected on Tongatapu Island (A. horrescens being absent), four species on 'Oneata Island (A. albopictus, A. horrescens, C. quinquefasciatus and C. annulirostris), four species on 'Eua Island (A. aegypti, A. albopictus, A. tongae and C. quinquefasciatus) and one on Pangaimotu Island (A. aegypti). Species collected from 'Eua and 'Oneata islands represent first-time collections of these species on these islands. Aedes aegypti, A.albopictus and C. quinquefasciatus were the three most common species collected and have markedly increased their distribution since the 2006 survey. The collection of A. albopictus is the second time that this species has been recorded in Tonga; however, the spatial extent of this species throughout Tongatapu was far greater than previously recorded. Management should focus on reducing the number of artificial habitats by covering, emptying or infilling these habitats with soil to minimise mosquito oviposition. This should reduce the abundance of mosquitoes and help prevent disease outbreak in Tonga.

Vector-borne disease in South Australia’s future climate

Climate change will impact the distribution, seasonality and incidence of mosquito-borne diseases. This is because climate and weather impact the distribution and biology of mosquitoes. There is a large body of literature on vector-borne disease distribution and incidence in a warming climate. However, predictions are commonly made using statistical models that contain assumptions that may not hold true in the future. Ross River virus infection is South Australia’s most common vector-borne disease and the epidemiology of the disease is difficult to model because of the complex interplay between non-human hosts, multiple mosquito vectors, and the human host. Nonetheless some general projections of changes in Ross River virus can be made. Dengue is widespread in the tropics globally and currently, within Australia, restricted to Queensland. The challenges of projecting changes in transmission in future climate scenarios are discussed. I discuss the implications of climate change for diseases already present in and potentially introduced to South Australia.

Impacts of the creation, expansion and management of English wetlands on mosquito presence and abundance - developing strategies for future disease mitigation.

The incidence of mosquito-borne diseases is increasing in Europe, partly due to the incursion of a number of invasive species known to be vectors of dengue and chikungunya viruses, but also due to the involvement of native species in the transmission of West Nile virus and malaria. For some of these pathogens, there is a risk of the re-emergence of vector-borne diseases that were once widespread in Europe, but declined partly due to large-scale land-drainage projects. Some mosquito species exploit container habitats as breeding sites in urban areas; an adaptation to human-made micro-habitats resulting from increased urbanisation. However, many species thrive in natural wetland ecosystems. Owing to the impacts of climate change there is an urgent need for environmental adaptation, such as the creation of new wetlands to mitigate coastal and inland flooding. In some cases, these initiatives can be coupled with environmental change strategies to protect a range of endangered flora and fauna species by enhancing and extending wetland landscapes, which may by driven by European legislation, particularly in urban areas. This paper reviews field studies conducted in England to assess the impact of newly created wetlands on mosquito colonisation in a) coastal, b) urban and c) arable reversion habitats. It also considers the impact of wetland management on mosquito populations and explores the implications of various water and vegetation management options on the range of British mosquito species. Understanding the impact of wetland creation and management strategies on mosquito prevalence and the potential risk of increasing the levels of nuisance or disease vector species will be crucial in informing health and well-being risk assessments, guiding targeted control, and anticipating the social effects of extreme weather and climate change. Although new wetlands will certainly extend aquatic habitats for mosquitoes, not all species will become a major nuisance or a vector concern as a result. Understanding how the design and management of wetlands might exacerbate mosquito densities is crucial if we are to manage nuisance mosquitoes and control vector species in the event of a disease outbreak. This entomological evidence-base will ensure that control strategies achieve optimal efficacy at minimal cost.

Global Climate Change and Emerging Infectious Diseases

Climatic factors influence the emergence and reemergence of infectious diseases, in addition to multiple human, biological, and ecological determinants. Climatologists have identified upward trends in global temperatures and now estimate an unprecedented rise of 2.0 degrees C by the year 2100. Of major concern is that these changes can affect the introduction and dissemination of many serious infectious diseases. The incidence of mosquito-borne diseases, including malaria, dengue, and viral encephalitides, are among those diseases most sensitive to climate. Climate change would directly affect disease transmission by shifting the vector's geographic range and increasing reproductive and biting rates and by shortening the pathogen incubation period. Climate-related increases in sea surface temperature and sea level can lead to higher incidence of water-borne infectious and toxin-related illnesses, such as cholera and shellfish poisoning. Human migration and damage to health infrastructures from the projected increase in climate variability could indirectly contribute to disease transmission. Human susceptibility to infections might be further compounded by malnutrition due to climate stress on agriculture and potential alterations in the human immune system caused by increased flux of ultraviolet radiation. Analyzing the role of climate in the emergence of human infectious diseases will require interdisciplinary cooperation among physicians, climatologists, biologists, and social scientists. Increased disease surveillance, integrated modeling, and use of geographically based data systems will afford more anticipatory measures by the medical community. Understanding the linkages between climatological and ecological change as determinants of disease emergence and redistribution will ultimately help optimize preventive strategies.