About the project
Background
Mosquitoes are a worldwide pest and source of infections for several harmful diseases, which gives the necessity to control them in many places. Sub-Saharan Africa is one of the most suffering regions, but globalization and climate change let mosquitoes become a problem also in areas previously unaffected.
A new control strategy
Conventional strategies usually base upon pesticide treatments, sometimes also upon the introduction of predators. Since 2005 a novel strategy for mosquito control has been developed at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research GmbH - UFZ, which combines the use of competitors for food and the application of a biological insecticide against mosquito larvae. The procedure is environmentally friendly and shows a relatively long action time.
Feasibility study
In the frame of this project the adaptability of the novel control strategy is tested in a real world situation at Lake Victoria in Kenya. Mosquito scouts are trained and the results are presented to gonvernmental and non-governmental stakeholders to integrate the method into existing and future control programs.