A mosquito trap that uses a person’s smell combined with warm water and a dark cylindrical shape could transform how the insects are caught in developing countries, say its creators.
A mosquito trap that uses a person’s smell combined with warm water and a dark cylindrical shape could transform how the insects are caught in developing countries, say its creators.
The trap, developed at the University of Greenwich in the United Kingdom, collected many more mosquitoes than so-called human landing catches, where collectors gather mosquitoes from their own exposed skin, during field tests in Burkina Faso.
“This is a major breakthrough,” says Gabriella Gibson, who led the research.
Nearly half the world’s population is at risk from mosquito-borne malaria, and in 2015 there were more than 200 million infected people and half a million deaths from the disease, according to the WHO. More than 90 per cent of cases were in Africa.
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Photo credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jim Gathany via Wikimedia Commons
