Preventing mosquito-borne diseases with AI and citizen science
Whether it be dengue, chikungunya, Zika or malaria, mosquito-borne diseases are on the rise. In fact, every year mosquitoes are responsible for nearly 700 million infections and over 1 million deaths worldwide. With vaccines and cures generally lacking, new approaches to addressing the spread of mosquito-borne diseases are needed. For the H-MIP(opens in new window) project, funded by the European Research Council(opens in new window), that means diving into the data. According to the project, the good news is that very few species of mosquitoes actually transmit diseases. The bad news is that scientists don’t know exactly which species those are. To help fill this knowledge gap, the project is conducting widespread surveillance to accurately identify which mosquitoes carry what disease. “Mosquitoes are an excellent source of information about the people they bite, while people are an excellent source of information about the mosquitoes that bite them,” says the project website. To get that information, project researchers are using the ubiquitous mobile phone. “Mobile phone positioning can provide novel insights about human-mosquito biting networks,” notes the project.
Calling all citizen scientists
The project has developed a mobile application that enables citizen scientists to collect data about mosquitoes and their bites. “People like to complain about mosquitos, and our Mosquito Alert app(opens in new window) (website in Spanish) lets us listen and harness this energy through citizen science,” adds the project. Anyone at least 18 years old is invited to participate in the project. All you have to do is download the app and start reporting mosquitoes and their breeding sites when you find them and record where you have been bitten. This information will allow researchers to gain knowledge about the spatial and temporal patterns of bites and, in the future, incorporate it into risk models together with the density of mosquitoes and people. Beyond using the app, citizens can participate in the project by volunteering to be interviewed or have H-MIP researchers inspect their house for mosquitoes. You can also submit your DNA for analysis to see which mosquitoes have bitten you. For these options, the project asks that you submit this consent form(opens in new window), and all data is collected with fully informed consent and in line with EU data protection standards.
AI at the front lines of disease prevention
With this data in hand, the project plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to help predict the risk a specific mosquito species poses for transmitting disease. “Knowing who mosquitoes bite or how many times they bite gives us an estimate of the interaction rate between humans and mosquitoes, which is one of the most important parameters in determining disease risk according to many mathematical models,” says Federica Lucati, one of the project’s researchers. The project’s work was tested in Africa as part of a campaign to track an invasive form of urban malaria, demonstrating the important role AI can play in disease research and prevention.